cloud watching

September was so much fun for me.  I finished another month long residency in Midd West again, for the sixth time.  Each kid got to make at least one tile and we had somewhere around 150 kids. This was my five advanced kids and I have had the honor of working with each of them before.  As you'd guess, they produced amazing tiles.

Kids were allowed to work in white or grey, some tiles with a combination of white and grey.  Some of these are so impressive especially considering the majority of the participants never worked with glass before.  We assembled all the tiles to make clouds.  The sky was made with a glorious mottled blue Youghiogheny, probably my favorite glass.  They already have it hung in the grade school that it was gifted to.  I want to get in there to take a good photo of it eventually.  Till then, they sent these.  

If you're on Insta, I put a video on there that shows the iridescent in the sun a little better.  Life is so good.  Thanks Pennsylvania Council on the Arts for funding projects like this.      

thanks jess!

I had this "Ball" jar idea for years but never moved on it.  Jess, my intern that I introduced in last post is the most flowery flower person I have ever met.  She talked about flowers so much that I thought that during her 9 weeks with me, I should work on a floral something.  This is the result.  I had a lily made as a sample for a class so I knew one flower that I would use and hydrangea makes a nice blue bottom for the bouquet. Snap dragons were Jess's idea and I love them too.

This isn't framed yet but I will put it up on Saatchi as soon as it is.  The blue glass is over half an inch deep.  "Billet MOSAIC" just cracks me up and it is my favorite signature tile right now.

 I can't wait to see it framed.  Until it sells, it will be loved in my home.

I was trying to work on the canning jar bouquet and a beetle at the same time.  Now I am all about the scarab.  It's going to be an Egyptian thing and I can almost see the end.  I am hoping to work a favorite movie, "Matrix" into it too.  We'll see.  The Matrix part is another thing that has been simmering for a while.  I might be too ambitious to think this might be done by the 26th when I start another residency.  Hmmmmm...

YESSSSSS, summmer!

The PPI/Lower Dauphin project is now finished.  Thanks so much to Pennsylvvania Council on the Arts for the help in funding these projects.  The last mosaic was an abstract and the catch was that I had to involve all FIVE of the elementary schools in our district.  Crazy!  I had some kids cut, some kids assemble, and used mosaic tape to prepare the bits for travel to the next school.  The top photo is what the elementary peeps came up with, the bottom photo is what we assembled the parts into.  The finish was predominately done by  a Lower Dauphin teacher and myself.  This is as cheerful as the rest of the five mosaics in the project.  I feel like a boss because there was some unbelievable hurdles in this project.  Thankfully, the Lower Dauphin teachers were extremely flexible and supportive but wow, those kids really stepped up to bat.  I started out thinking PPI/Lower Dauphin would be a dream project and it ended up even cooler than I had imagined.  As usual, all the stymies just prepared me for the next big thing so yeah, I'm ready.  Bring it, Universe!

The end of May, I took on an intern.  Jess has been just what I needed to kick my ass into gear.  Sure, we are doing a lot of menial things like cleaning and other stuff that needs done on a regular basis, but we are also working on a collaborative mosaic, a video of a separate mosaic, and trying to land the next big thing.  This summmer will be hot for us... in a good way.

rolling with it

Whew!  It has been a busy year so far.  Almost all of the six Lower Dauphin mosaics for the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute are done.  All three pictured below were dreams come true.  I thought there was a chance that I would get to do the tree one in a school someday but to do a pineapple and a wave in a Pennsylvania school was a stretch.  I believe you can click on the pineapple to see some details.  The teachers that I have been working with for these three have given me feedback and I think I am probably the luckiest woman alive.

In the wave and pineapple, there was one group of kids and their teacher that worked on making tiles.  They handed the tiles off to another group of kids with a different teacher to assemble the tiles and finish the mosaic.

I just wish you could see this in person.  I bet this is going to make some kids at PPI really happy.  It's kinda crazy how it works in schools.  The entire day is made up of 40 minute periods.  So whatever is going on, changes hands every 40 minutes.  Insane! 

The trees were done by middle school peeps.  I cannot be prouder of these guys.  Normally if we fuse and mosaic in the same residency, it is a four week process.  These guys did it in two.  The photo below is ALL the kids involved.  They were small groups of 4-15 kids at a time.  Their tiles were just as cool as the high school kids' tiles. 

So now I am back in my shop, just in the layout stage of a new mosaic of my own.  All I know for sure is that it is about a beetle and synchronicity.  Life is good.

geology rocks!

"geology rocks (Alex's fault)" is a 36 x 20 inch mosaic I have been working on between residencies.  I was commissioned to make art for a geologist.  You're pretty sharp if you guessed that his name is Alex. This project was a dream job in so many ways. For starters, I know almost nothing about geology except that I am fascinated by beautiful rocks.  I think mostly why I loved this is because I had to do research to think of what I was going to do.  It is hard to create when the person commissioning gets so specific that there is little room for imagination.  This client was the total opposite; appreciative and open for anything so it was a joy the whole way through.  I was dealing with a sick Mama during the fabrication of this and mosaicking certainly helped me get through.

If I sketch anything, I rarely show that before the work is finished because my drawings are so bad.  Sure, I could do a better drawing but it might take longer than the mosaic.  This is actually one of my better ones.  Most of them are of pen on napkin caliber.  Plus, I know I will change my mind 800 times.  I don't want to be committed.

The geode wasn't the first idea but it was the first part done.  I thought purple would be the most believable but I didn't like it when it was finished.  In blue, I had more shades to work with so I could make the center darker, giving it the appearance of more depth than it actually has.  Instead of leveling like I always do, the geode is actually recessed 1/4 inch.

I wanted a layer of "broken plates" to be like pottery and human garbage like stuff found in ancient Rome,  I couldn't decide what floral or paisley to make.  I knew I wanted to put something in it so that someone observant would know it wasn't really recycled plates.  Trilobites popped in my head one day.  I love that part and made it my signature in here.

Trilobites sandblasted into that luscious caramel color.  There's two burnt into the frame too.  The yellow is mirror and it's propped to reflect differently.  It is all the same color but looks different because of the angles.

I had a human skelly but after the mosaic progressed, I didn't like it any more.  I wasn't trying to keep things proportional but the human just didn't look right to me.

The columnar basalt was the first thing I was sure would go in the mix.  The front section is all propped so they are all kind of like steps.  Hard to see in a photo.  I love that part.  And if a mosaic has a water feature... I'm all about that.  Besides, it was just more reason to add blue.  The coloring on this really appeals to me.  I generally steer away from orange but I think it helps this mosaic a lot.  Let's face it, the mosaic is a picture of dirt and rocks.  It needs all the color it can get.

People ask how I get the drips on the glass.  As you can see from above photos, the drips do not go over the glass.  The drips go on first and I mosaic background around them.  The "ammonites" are iridescent and there is a layer of Oreo crust in the earths core that I have managed to replicate exactly as it appears thousands of feet below the surface we walk on.  Ah ha ha.  Life is good.

full steam ahead

Last post I said I'd be full steam ahead in the new year and that started on January 2.  I am working on the biggest, most collaborative project that I've ever been a part of.  Just like most artists I know, I want to do every inch of my work MY WAY.  That's not what happens in a collaboration. 

I guess there were about 75 kids and each got their own patch of color to work on and do whatever they wanted.

Here are two of the 6 mosaics that I am obligated to produce for this project.  These took two weeks and there are six more weeks spread out through May.  I am working with all seven Lower Dauphin schools, and five of them are grade schools!  The resulting mosaics will find their home in the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute in Harrisburg.  All six mosaics will be on the adolescent floor of this hospital.  We are hoping to help provide a more nurturing environment for patients and the people caring for them.  Does something this big have it's twists and turns?  Oh, you bet.  But even though I don't enjoy certain aspects of a collaboration, I have to admit that those things make me more bad ass and capable of the next cool thing.  Thanks Pennsylvania Council on the Arts for what you've done to make this happen.

AND, I just realized that I didn't mention the video someone made for me.  Olivia Pfeffer did a fantastic job and I highly recommend her.  You can see the video here on YouTube.