Garden Ball - 2010 This garden ball was the first mosaic I made! It was at a workshop in 2010 at the newly opened Mosaic Oasis, a new studio in Arlington. Betsy Rodman, my colleague and friend from work and the local music and dancing community, left nursing to become a mosaic artist. She and Suzanne made balls from styrofoam, mesh and thinset, and laid out a bunch of tiles and mirror pieces. Following my usual inclinations, I made a loose blue spiral around the sphere. It kept losing pieces that I have stopped replacing, but it still stands in the center of my garden.
Birdbath- 2012-2013 I made this birdbath in 2012-2013 on a large terracotta planter dish with thinset (cement) in 2012ish. It held together for a couple years, then the tiles kept coming off. I was still using coated mirror tiles, which lost their backing. About 2015 it got ridiculous so I pulled off and replaced most of the tiles. I was still in the “learn by doing and failing” stage so this time was worse- I finally dumped it in the trash about 2016. Now I’m using purchased bird baths, un-mosaiced.
Mirror with Pink Frame - 2012 This was a gift for my sister, who loves pink. The flowered ceramic is from a small candy dish from our Grandma Cundiff who died when I was five and Debbie not born yet. It was a fixture when we were kids. It crumbled at the small handles so I was happy to use it for this project. The other materials I would never use now as I didn’t know any better then: cheap mirror and glitter tiles and some stained-glass and vitreous tiles.
“Two Moons” at Wells Maine-2013 Two of my kids, Michael and A. Rose and their partners spent a weekend with me at a motel on the beachfront at Wells Maine. The internet was proclaiming two moons but it was really Jupiter. I collected all the stuff for this one that weekend, except the blue broken bottle glass. I put it together at another workshop at Mosaic Oasis for using found objects.
Beach Pebble Trivet- 2013 Another example of trying something before I knew what I was doing. I had been collecting colored pebbles on the Mashnee Beach since I started spending regular time there in 2012. Soon after that a mosaic event was in nearby Falmouth, and I eagerly listened to Rachel Sager do a fascinating presentation on using foraged rocks in mosaics. It was the first I heard of a hammer and hardy (though it was seven years later before I owned and could use them). Later that summer I attempted to mosaic my pebbles on a circle of plywood. I had made a couple small samples first, and luckily determined that grout would not work as it turned the stones black! I then used stone sealer and thinset to apply the stones, which looked messy but OK. Unfortunately, the stones kept falling off! Either I used poor quality thinset, or didn’t prep the plywood adequately. It went into the trash a couple years later.
Tempered Glass Collage in Homage to My Parents- 2014. I made this at a workshop at Mosaic Oasis shortly after my mother died. I didn’t have much of her jewelry at the time but made do with what I had. The morning after she died, I woke up quite early and for some reason George had not lowered the blinds. First thing I saw was a star, putting me in mind of the song “Bright Morning Stars” which I sang and meditated on as I processed losing the final parent. The photos are fading now and I have to decide soon whether to replace them. I think it was more a processing grief kind of art than a real mosaic, but these also have their place.
George and Me Montage- 2015 I made this as part of yet another workshop at Mosaic Oasis where I learned about polymer clay, Apoxie Sculpt, and all manner of glittery stuff to enhance tesserae we made. It was so fun. I figured out how to do photo transfer onto the clay from my ink jet printer and used these photos and framed them with beads. Every technique Amy Marks taught us is in this piece. I’ve since used the polymer clay a little and Apoxie Sculpt a lot, and love Rub N’Buff for a lot of uses!