Tesserae: The Art of Mosaic Exhibit

 In beautiful Long Beach, California

Over the summer I was honored to be selected for a juried exhibition, that focuses on mosaic art.  Its hosted by the 2CC Gallery.  Accepted pieces were chosen from hundreds of submissions, featuring some of the finest contemporary mosaic artists.

 My deepest desire was to express in this portrait, Korlah’s indomitable spirit. I also wanted to do justice to her incredible, radiant beauty. Over the course of our meetings and correspondence I tried to learn about her interests and passions, in the hopes of incorporating them, in some way, into the piece.    

To create “Korlah” I knew I would use her favorite colors, but I wanted to hand paint bisque tiles so that I could create natural variation and shading within each color. I also hand sculpted many different images that corresponded with various aspects of her life and dreams. I like to use images like this in unexpected ways, to elaborate on her story. Once all sculpting, glazing, and firings, were complete I was ready to mosaic!

Here is a bathroom I just finished installing a custom mosaic in. It is a beautifully appointed bathroom in the Hollywood Hills, and the client wanted an Italian inspired mosaic of a conch shell. I used all unpolished marble to give it an ancient feel, except for a little bit of the inner shell which was polished. I also used a green, in the border, that matches tile flooring in various parts of the clients house– connecting the piece to its environment. It was a really fun project– here are some pics of the installation.

Here it is, all done!

 A few more–

I’ve been working with children for a long time now– it really is one of my favorite things.  I’ve taught classes and held workshops– but really I just find children’s art endlessly exciting, brilliant, and fascinating. So I couldn’t help myself when I was contacted by Chris Simmons, a passionate and dedicated elementary school teacher– who is celebrating her 37th year of teaching!   She told me about this project where all of the children at Mountian Avenue Elementary, painted their own ceramic tiles–  Young artists truly after my own heart! Parents got involved in the painting, and some entire families were represented! Mrs. Simmons introduced me to Sandy Russell, a generous and kind parent and PTA’er who’d been overseeing the entire project, and Kent Andrews, the affable Regional Supervisor of the district. 

  I had my “blank canvas”…  

The first step was to figure out a layout that would fit with the space I had.  The kids tiles had basically been painted with either a blue or a green background, suggestive of a landscape…. So I really tried to find a way to accentuate the “landscape” feel.  There was also such neat detail in the tiles, that I didn’t want to get lost.  Usually when there is a lot of activity in a composition, some negative space can help ground it– and in keeping with the “landscape” motif, I thought some “landmarks” would help unify and ground at the same time…..

Leaving some blank spots for my “landmarks” and blocking out some space for the fountains, I settled into a layout that felt right– and kept various families’ tiles grouped together. 

I ended up painting and firing over a hundred tiles!

After cleaning the brick, I put up some layout boards and taped off.