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.

comfortable

Ah ha ha!  This sea witch is DONE.  At 36 x 20 inches, "comfortable ( the fushigi life )" was way harder than I thought but a good experience regardless.  In the past few years, when I complete a mosaic, I give you the skinny about what's what in the thought process of how it came to be.  This one was so personal that I think I will let it remain personal... for now.  I will let you see what you will in this work. 

Tomorrow, I start on a new one.  I still am not sure if I want to go steampunk or ferns and fungus.  I think I am lichen the ferns and fungus though.  Fiddleheads?

shaka brah!

Well, I finally finished "shaka."  What a joy it was to work in these colors, and THAT TEXTURE!  This is kind of my story in a nutshell.  There are a few fun inclusions within the mosaic that reference my love of board shorts and flip flops.  A while back, I read a book about the wisdom of the Tao.  Lao Tzu talks about the fact that water, which is so soft, can wear away stone.  Shaka is a surf term meaning- hang loose.  Yeah, perfect, right?  This whole work has been an illustration for me that things are going to work out.  You know I have to have fun with my signature so where is that??  Right up on top is billet, surfing through life.  Shaka brah!

and then...

You know... there are those that would question the sanity of a person that works on a 3 foot by 5 foot piece with a tweezers.  And really, it is ridiculous how long it takes to cut, fit, cut, fit, cut a tile like the one in the lower photo.  But then it is kind of scary how much I enjoy doing all this.  Just the color palette that I am working with is enough to make me giddy.  Down to the wire and I STILL think I can make it by Reston!  Woohoo regardless!

pressure? pfft!

Pressure is ON!  I have a little over two weeks to finish this mother wave.  On the top is about where I am.  The middle is the photos I am working with. Looks exactly the same, right?  Anyway, things should move a lot faster now.  It is mostly basic mosaic from here on out.  I bet it takes two days to grout the white part.  Not complainin'.

underwhelmed

This week has been a typical week for me, meaning that it is the same roller coaster that I always experience.  No doubt, it is the same that YOU all experience.  A lot of good shit happens and a lot that you'd rather skip.  First thing... I got in Longs freaking Park.  This is HUGE in my book.  I've gotten into shows that are ranked way higher but in all the years I've applied to this show, I could never get in.  I am so unbelievably stoked about this but it would be just as easy for me to focus on the stuff that didn't go so well this week.

 

Let me tell you about a few of the things that I DON'T usually blab about in my blog, newsletter, or FaceBook.  For a while now, I have been involved with serious talk about an enormous mosaic in the med center.  I've been so excited about it that I have lost quite a bit of sleep over it.  So Friday, I found out that they decided against a mosaic (for now.)  They felt the room that they needed art for would be better served with transparent glass on the windows and I had to agree.  They assured me that they def want my work in the hospital and I know that whatever mosaic project pops up in its place will be far more glorious than this one that I had been envisioning instead of sleeping.  I swear to you that all my thoughts directed toward mosaic are never wasted.

 

I look at setbacks as just part of the process.  This week, Rob came in my shop and saw the progress of the wave I am working on.  His comment was, "I am underwhelmed."  He knows, and I know that there are many stages of ugly before a mosaic is finished.  Look at those enormous gaps that will be filled in and rough edges that will be covered with frame.  And for real, who besides me can see a wave in that mess?  It is just a recent thing that I am becoming a little more comfortable with showing my work at this stage. 

 

What I am trying to say is that I think a lot of my friends think that my life is something different than theirs.  It is not that I am trying to hide the fact that I didn't get into Longs Park the first 8 times I applied.  Its also not that I am bragging about getting IN this time.  I am just celebrating HARD CORE because I KNOW what it took to get there.  I guess in a nutshell it is this: What works for me is to talk about and focus on the truth that I got in Longs rather than the truth that I missed out on the med center this time.  I don't worry about how this mosaic looks now because I can see the end.  I realize that whatever I am dealing with I can CHOOSE how to look at every situation.  If you don't believe me, read Viktor Frankl.  Love this life.