time to make the donuts

If you know ahead of time you will be making rainbow sprinkles, you know it's going to be fun.  In this project, I worked with three teachers, and I had worked with each of them separately before in different projects.  I felt like it was kismet that these three ended up in Mifflin County High School and I was blessed to work with them.
 

I wish I could say that donuts were MY idea but they weren't.  Nobody remembers who came up with the idea but I love it.  Their cafeteria is the perfect place for this mosaic.

I always say that I am amazed at what people come up with for tiles.  One surprise here was a comb from a guy that cuts hair! Never had one of those that I can remember.    

It's so nice to see humans shoulder to shoulder again. When working on a mosaic, it is such slow momentum that it is difficult to see that we have even made any progress in a whole class.  But below, I have a progression of day to day. Keep in mind that this is about 15-20 people at a time almost all day. The first four days were spent making tiles. Then it took two days to grout because we used two colors.  This project was made possible by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, through the Perry County Council of the Arts. I'm beyond grateful.

I am already working on the next mosaic and hope to show you some progress photos soon.  The feature tiles will be dandelion poofs and they were made in four different schools in my area.  Life is but a dream.

Harrisburg Artsfest 2022

Yesterday, I said I was crazy busy and made a short blog post... so why am I here today with another? I had to get a newsletter out to tell everyone about the reveal of this mosaic... and I usually link to my blog for a few more photos.  So here we go.

Harrisburg Artsfest had me set up in a mega tent with Capital Area Intermediate Unit to make tiles with festival attendees.  I had no idea what to expect but it was wonderful.  There were over a thousand people of every age making tiles.  The result of this great community effort will be gifted to the Harrisburg High School.  

By my count, we ended up with 1130 tiles and then the kids in the CAIU camp made almost 100 more tiles.  The goal was to have kids assemble the mosaic in camp but we did not get enough kids to get it finished.  That's why I am scrambling to get done by the reveal date.  There is an open house Aug 26th and at 1PM will be the reveal.  I'd love to see you there.

I will get a photo of it hanging as soon as possible.  The four panels will fit to make the mosaic 6 feet tall and 8 feet wide. Right now, the yellow and orange that is on the table is finished and I am working on the blue and green circles.  Busy = happy here.  I'm so grateful.

I know.  It's true.  I have been remiss in blogging.  For a while there was nothing to blog about then a tidal wave happened.  I'm not complaining.  The above project was finished in February at Allen Middle School.  One crazy thing is that this project involved a record number of 26 students at one time in one of the classes.  

This project was facilitated and supported by Capital Area Intermediate Unit.  I am so grateful and love working with them. In case you worry about me getting a swelled head about anything ever, I included a photo of the entire crowd for the reveal of the mosaic.  Other than the faculty and CAIU representatives, this cool family was the only ones to show up for the event.  Sigh... 

Then right after that, I started the above koi mosaic with Susquenita Middle School.  I've been dying to do a koi mosaic and was so happy the project landed with these cutie pies.  After the record-breaking large class of last project, every class in this project was about the same size!

I wish you could walk past it but I am going to add a video so you can better sense how cool the mirror is in this. BTW, that mirror was donated from Rainbow Vision in Harrisburg to help support our efforts.  This project was facilitated and supported by Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and Perry County Council of the Arts.  It's always been a pleasure working with them.

weird times

Each of my residencies is unique and offers it's own challenges.  This one involved collaborating with people that I did not even get to meet!  Obviously, I would have enjoyed working in person WITH these people but we dealt with the restrictions at that time, I did get to go in briefly, but most tile making was done at Penn State Hershey Medical Center, by the staff, with glass that I dropped off. 

This mosaic is 3x5 feet and is a different recipe than I have used in the past.  It features the tiles made by participants like in most of my residencies. The part that was different was that I assembled the mosaic myself.  I love assembling with a group, but when I work myself, I am able to do more complicated work than I can accomplish with the hands of 20 glass newbies working full speed ahead all at the same time.  

This art was definitely a "labor" of love.   The project was intended as an artistic outlet to benefit staff that has been on the front lines of the grind through a historically challenging time. I proposed my fingerprint idea as a way to symbolize the way these people touch our community. 

 There's so much personality in here.  I absolutely LOVE when people can point to the part or parts they made... where they were able to do whatever they wanted. Moving forward, I am hoping to find a lot more projects just like this... but hopefully in person.

 

 

It's showtime!

In Pennsylvania, we are still on lockdown.  Although I am home alone most of the time anyway, quarantine has not been as simple as I had thought it would be.  Regardless, I finished the video for the recent mosaic that I made. Here is a link on YouTube.  

Thanks for watching!   Share if you like it.

amor fati

According to Wikipedia, amor fati is a Latin phrase that means "love of fate." It is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good or, at the very least, necessary.  "amor fati," my latest mosaic, is about four feet tall and three feet wide.

Yeah, I always say the same thing... "I wish you could see this in person." Right?  Photos of my mosaics makes them look flat.  The black number matrix tiles are inlaid over half an inch deep; the beetle body and the eye of Horus protrude about the same. So I have this done now, and I can't even show the rest of my family under the current quarantine circumstances because we're following recommended precautions.  The only two people that have seen this are the two pictured in the mosaic, Rob and myself.  The mosaic is about a woman that loves to make art.  If you see things in this that make you think the mosaic might be deeply personal, you are correct.  

I started this back in the summer, and was hoping to be done by Thanksgiving, ha!  I took photos and clips throughout the process and will start on a video tomorrow.  Can't wait! I always figure that people may be mildly curious about the process, but not enough to hear all the boring details so I will try my best to squeeze months of work into 4 minutes. 

The brown/gold/blue band across has my handmade glass; bubbles, polka dots, stripes and the usual stuff that makes me so happy.  The features in this had me cracking up the entire time I was working on it.  My dog is a shih tzu so the rendering of him in this mosaic is hilarious.  Yes, this is basically what Rob wears when he cooks.  Notice his sword to fend off attacking enemies. 

I thought long and hard about the art that the woman would be painting in the mosaic.  I knew I wanted blue on her brush and was initially thinking the wave or the astronaut.  Having her paint the beetle... I mean, the actual mosaic that she is in... was kind of an after-thought but it works for me.

The art that she has created is actually referencing my work.  I couldn't fit everything and a lot of my favorites were omitted just because I felt they would be hard to render in this size. 

For me, signature tiles are serious stuff.  Often, they are thought out long before the mosaic is started.  The signature tile for this mosaic was going to be another numbers matrix tile but towards the end of completion, I decided on a cartouche.  I know it is way off of what a real cartouche looks like but I am thrilled with how it turned out.  The "crumbling" walls that reveal the numbers are something that I have never done before.  They are a layer below the surface of the rest of the mosaic.  Maybe the best part is the dimension that you can see when you move from side to side looking at those columns of numbers.  I have a video of them on Instagram if you're interested.  OK!  I'm pretty sure the next mosaic is a beta fish.  I have a cute commission first so we'll see.  I have a while to change my mind.

 

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.      

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.