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.

mMoooOOOoooo

OK, so I get a little tired of the fact that art in PA is only considered art if it is a floral or a landscape. I decided I needed to do a landscape. Hmmm, is it considered a landscape if its an ariel view? The piece is called South Running Brook Farm. SRB Farm was a farm near State College that our cousin owned for thirty years. Anyway, in true down-on-the-farm style, I thought I would even throw in a few cows. They are black angus. I thought I did a pretty good job on them. I have included a close up of the mother and baby cow in the top photo. I love the expression on their faces. Mooo