Rocks on the beach

My mosaic world and my world with George have intertwined since both relationships ignited in 2011. His house is on a lovely private rocky beach on an island off Cape Cod. There are rocks there of many colors and I was determined to learn how to mosaic with them. I first attempted to glue the pebbles onto sample wood pieces and a wooden circle, and soon learned by trial and error that they would not stick, and grout stains them all black.

In 2012 I was stunned at a presentation given by Rachel Sager at a mosaic event nearby on the Cape. She described how she foraged and used local stone in the area where she grew up in and now lived in western Pennsylvania. She described the process and tools she used and the amazing mosaics she created. But life intervened, and it wasn’t until 2018 at the Boston SAMA (Society of American Mosaic Artists) conference that I met Sophie Druin and learned about her work with stone, and bought my first hammer and hardy.

By now I had a ton of beach rocks, and started experimenting by smashing them with a hand sledge hammer. Then I shaped them with hammer and hardy, and sometimes with a ring saw. I made a large-ish mosaic of the Mashnee beach.

The next breakthrough was watching Rachel Sager’s on-line videos (Mosaic Arts Online), especially those about Intuitive Andamento. I had also discovered “locally harvested” rocks from New England fields. I was able to get scraps from a company (American Stonecraft) that sliced these rocks to make trivets and breadboards. I could easily use the hammer and hardy to make tesserae to mosaic with.

This year, I finally added hangers to a bunch of vintage floor tiles given to me by a friend. It was so much fun to make this mosaic, building on all the skills I’ve learned in the last 10 years.

Local Rocks, 2021. 6x8”, Mashnee beach rocks, and New England fieldstone, slate, and a circle from a rock I need to identify.