end of the school year

I can't say enough thank-yous to the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts for hiring me to do these residencies.  I want to again hire my photographer to shoot all four of these projects and will post in situ photos.  For now, I am going to share some of the photos that are of what goes on. 

 I'm anxious to see all these projects together and hung.  I am so proud of them that I have decided to make a serious effort to change my work's direction.  Way back when I was trying to decide if I should do mosaic or fused glass, I knew I should combine both.  Now, I am hoping to find ways to combine my own art with these projects because, frankly, I am addicted to both.

Who wouldn't love working with these two?

For one thing, twenty people at one time can get a whole lot of work done, FAST.  Sure, there are stinkers to contend with, and I don't always get through to them all.  I don't expect to. But when I can get through to one of these tough nuts, it is an indescribable high.  I can tell you that every day of this 40 day stretch, I was looking forward to going to "work."

One school, had a project where each kid got to make their own tile, then we started on the mosaic. 

In the third one, each kid got to do his own little section of a feather.  They chose a color and we assigned real estate.

 They made their own little video of the process and put it out on FUSFOO

 The last one was huge mirror letters that the school wanted in a mosaic of their school colors.  I was dying to do something with Ben Day dots so I was thrilled. 

For right now, I have to work on lining up some epic projects.  WOOHOOOOO!

back in the saddle again

 Feels SO good to be mosaicking again.  I took time away from my studio for a residency.  Then my husband and I were in Denver to see my son and daughter-in-law for 10 fantastic days.  I spent a day with an amazing young artist and her equally amazing mom.  So after that, I immediately resumed work on my selfie.  This morning, Bonsai gives me that skewed sideways smile and says, "Girl, you are nailing this mosaic.  You didn't even need to be so honest about the wrinkle between your eyebrows because nobody notices it but you."  I told him thank you and immediately made him employee of the month.  This is so much evidence to me that dogs, particularly shih tzus, are smarter than they are given credit for.  Anyhoo, the hardest part of this mosaic is DONE.  Starting on dots and stripes tomorrow.  You knew that was coming!    

 

coming up for air

So totally swamped. I will have the whole skinny on this shortly. For now, here are two "fast and dirty" photos of our progress in Middleburg. This is a result of THREE DAYS of these kids' work, no kidding! First day I spent just explaining how to cut glass...eight times. Every period we start over and each kid takes the time to try it out so the first day nothing was adhered. I can't freaking wait to see this done. Saturday and Sunday I can work on my sneaker mosaic.

OK, here is how I know I have it good. We played the lottery for this weekend's 500 big ones. If we win, the above paragraph will still acurately state my intentions for the next two weeks. No shit! That's my life. I'll hire help around the house so I can WORK MORE!

SO proud!

It seems like I have been underground lately, but geez, I have been busy. For the past two weeks, I have been doing another artist-in-residence thing at Juniata High School. In short, that means that I worked with 76 kids and their teacher to create a 3 foot x 7 foot glass mosaic in 10 fast days. Of the 4 hours we worked each day, at least a half hour was spent getting things out and putting them away!

The vision was for the work to say "pride." Each student got a 6 inch by 6 inch square to do whatever they wanted as long as they incorporated their portion of the letter into the design. Half of the students made a fused glass tile while the rest used traditional mosaic methods. For a week and a half we worked blind to what our end results would be. We had no idea if the kids would match their letter patterns close enough to produce a legible word. With 76 kids and many absences, there was no guarantee of how many squares would get lost. I made a map of the kids' squares so that they could see who was adjacent to them in case they wanted to collaborate with one another to create a work larger than 6 x 6 inches within the entire mosaic. We had as many as four working on one section that features a mermaid.

We had butterflies and flowers, buildings and guitars, landscapes and eyes, sports and a cheerleader, PIZZA, a gold cross, and a family crest. I mean, what didn't we have? It was cool that themes that were duplicated were done so- quite unknowingly. Interestingly, the results were that each repeat was so different than the other that it just emphasized our diversity, something we are awfully proud of. So the day before we had to adhere the tiles, the last section was fit in 8 minutes before the bell rang. Nothing needed cut or ground to fit (a feat by itself) and you could read the word loud and clear. These kids have pride in what they are as well they SHOULD. They also have pride in what they have created as do I. So after getting paid to play with kids all day for two weeks, I have to get back to work. Oh wait... that is playing all day too! May the rest of 2012 be this wonderful!

ArtFlow has been brought to the school by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Perry County Council of the Arts and the Juniata County Cultural Arts Committee.