Craving stillness

The cardinal is finished, and I am ready to ship it off to it’s new home right after Thanksgiving. I’ve become rather fond of this little bird (cuz every little thing - gonna be alright ) and I will miss him, but he will be cherished in his new home as a reminder to the family of a loved one they lost a few years ago. It’s wonderful to hear the stories that make up the connection behind why someone loves and wants your artwork.

Berry Christmas
12” x 12”
smalti, stained glass, garnet beads and Carrera marble

Prints will be available very soon – I’ll let you know when they are in. Also, this is the design that will be featured on my annual Christmas ornament. Details on that very soon too!

With the rush to finish the cardinal, planning for travel to visit my family for Thanksgiving and my husband’s for Christmas, not to mention preparing for the Holiday Market on December 5, I find that I am craving stillness. I want to sit in a chair and not move. Not even my brain.
I can’t do that, so I figured the next best thing was to make my next project a still life. Not my usual fare, but this will be enough of a challenge to keep the juices flowing. When preparing to stage the still life, the first item I thought of and wanted to include was a basket by an artist friend of mine, Diane McEachen. She owns Brook Village Basketry and has a studio just down the hall from me. I really hesitated to do that, because the prospect of rendering a woven basket in mosaic was pretty daunting. But I think it’s going to work:

In the interest of saving my sanity, I will leave off the wooden beads and the metal bail handle.
I will keep some of the table top and fade it out chiaroscuro style into the background.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Technorati Tags: Thanksgiving,cardinal,Holiday Market,still life,chiaroscuro,carrera marble,mosaic,glass,art

Unfurled mosaic mural beginnings

I mentioned on my Faceboook page the mosaic mural I’m participating in – Unfurled designed by Lin Schorr Mixed Media Mosaics – and I see that I never mentioned it here!  Huh.  I have tried so hard to pull myself together and get more organized about sharing information, but I have reverted to my scatterbrained ways. 
Anyway, here is the design Lin came up with, which is being divvied up among something like 50 artists.  The completed design will be 8’ tall by 13’ wide.

Currently, artists (myself included) are working on the section on the left.  I am assigned the flower petal on the far left.  The color scheme for the petals is to be pink/tangerine/yellow. 
Searching for inspiration, I kept coming back to look at the images I have collected over the years of the tulips, from centuries past and modern day, that have very pronounced striping.  I have been fascinated with the tulips that caused a major financial panic in Europe in the 1600s – as much for the bizarre behavior they inspired as for the flowers themselves.  Tulips were introduced to Europe in the century before, but in Holland an industry developed around their cultivation which produced a bubble like the dot com bubble or the housing bubble, although on an even more ridiculous scale!   


At the height of the mania, the Viceroy tulip at right apparently sold for 3,000 – 4,500 guilders.  A skilled craftsman, by contrast, only earned 300 guilders per year.   

I love these stripes,  but I was concerned about being too literal with the design.  In part because Lin has come up with an overall design that looks to me very Jacobean (click here to see some examples from the web), although the project information says it is Art-Nouveau inspired.  I can see that influence too.  Both are very stylized botanicals with lots of curves.  I wanted to be sure to incorporate lots of curviness because of that (and because I want to, dammit).  So here is the beginning of the petal:

And because of my fear of commitment, I have only very lightly sketched in a guide with pencil.  Many of the artists have added bold black marker guidelines to follow, but what if I change my mind?!?!?!  I tend to find that I like the finished piece better when it evolves organically anyway, so I’ll just let it flow and see what we end up with.
I plan to do the pinks first, then fill in with the yellow and oranges, but I couldn’t resist popping some in just to get a feel for how it would look.

Technorati Tags: Unfurled,mosaic mural,Lin Schorr Mixed Media Mosaics,petal,tulips,tulip mania,Art Nouveau,Jacobean

Another doh! moment

Wow.  What a difficult thing it has been to get back to work in the studio after the holidays!  In part, because the two things that I have started are crap.  They might be saved, somehow, someday.  But as they stand I hate them.  Not hate….intensely dislike?  Whatever.
Today I started on a large project that I prepped ages ago.  In fact, I was trying to remember exactly how long it had been.  And I can’t.  That’s how long it was.  At least 2 years, maybe 2 1/2.
I have been staring at it crosswise for a couple of weeks now, trying to decide whether the time was ripe to give it a go.  I have been especially hesitant because of the two projects I mentioned above – gives the old confidence a kick in the ribs to have two projects going at once, and both of them rubbish.  So maybe I should wait?
I decided that maybe what I needed was to jump in.  So I end up with a third lemon, so what?  What’s one more?
Anyway, I placed a couple of orders, but I CAN’T WAIT.  I know I’ve told you many times that patience hates me.  So I started with what I had on hand.




Aaanndd…… dummy.  I should have waited, because I put some glass in that was definitely too dark.  That will have to come out and be replaced when the orders come in.  How old do you have to be to learn this damn lesson?!?




The photo I’m working from was taken several years ago in my gardens in New Hampshire.  I think it’s the coolest photo because I have no idea how the colors came out like they did.  This photo is unretouched:


These rudbeckias were in the shade of the house, but the sun was still high in the sky when I took the pic.  I have no idea why the green foliage turned out blue, but I loved it.  I used this as my logo for my garden design business Bellafiore Gardens.

Technorati Tags: rudbeckias,Bellafiore Gardens,mosaic,glass

I’d be lost without my camera.

Happy, except for the shade of one single piece of glass that doesn’t work for me.  I’ll replace it tomorrow.
I find it amazing how much better I can see adjustments that need to be made in a photo than in person.  Seems like there’s just something wrong with that!

Technorati Tags: mosaic,poppy,smalti,red,floral

And now I feel dizzy….

When I hit the lottery, I’m buying a few pounds of every possible color of smalti.  I have always agonized over every purchase, trying to make sure I get just the right shade, and I always fail. 
I know it doesn’t sound like it ought to be that hard, but consider this…..Mosaic Smalti carries around 150 (probably more) colors of Orsoni smalti (a company which actually produces over 10,000 different colors).  Yes, I said TEN THOUSAND!!!  And di Mosaico (where most of what I have came from) carries about 375 colors of MDM smalti (a company which can produce as many as 20,000 colors by special request).  But let’s not forget Perdomo Mexican smalti available from Smalti.com…………oy!  It makes my head spin.

Just a small sampling of what’s available!


So although I just received 1/2 lb. of the color I thought would be perfect for the light sections of the bark on a sycamore tree, it’s too light.  I’ll have to try again.  Phoo.






Current progress – and yeah, those are blood stains by the tree on the left.  This art form is not for sissies.

Untitled. Because I can’t choose.

Well, the existential crisis I refer to in the subtitle of this blog has wrapped it’s slimy fingers around my brain again today. Some days I’m awed by the limitless possibilities of being. And there are times like these (which, oddly enough, was playing on Pandora as I wrote those words), when that limitlessness is more important than the possibilities themselves. If I choose, I close doors. And yet wasn’t it the band Rush that said “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice”?
I have always had the sense that a label was a limit. If you are '’this’ then you are not ‘that”. I think that’s in part a reaction to the sense that as our society and lifestyles seem to pick up speed, we are encouraged – rather required – to narrow our focus, to specialize, to forsake certain possibilities in favor of other “more important” ones. The days of the Renaissance Man are long gone. No one has time to be well versed in many things, and there is precious little respect in today’s culture for anyone who aspires to be.
At any rate, because I have been in such a funky mood, it seemed appropriate to me to start the mosaic that I designed based on dreams. Although dream interpretation is not something I know much about, I believe Jung claimed that water symbolized the subconscious. I very often dream of water – sometimes it’s threatening sea swells and sometimes a peaceful creek in the woods. Although there is sometimes trepidation in the dream about the power of the water, I always ending up realizing that I have nothing to fear. This particular mosaic is designed in a very different color palette than I typically use. I’m so fond of bright, primary colors, but this one is muted. The colors are rich (I’m using Italian smalti) but for the most part, the color scheme is analogous – purple, blue and green.

The gravity of a single leaf.

Autumn is such a sentimental time for me. I get just a little sappy (only a little!!!). There is such a sense of fullness and appreciation for everything. Even the smallest things and occurrences have a feeling of gravity about them. The little ant walking around in circles on the white rug last night seemed to be exactly where he was supposed to be, doing exactly what he was supposed to do.
In the spirit of this gravity of the season, I’m starting a new mosaic from a photo of an orange maple leaf floating downstream. Something about that single leaf in the water seems terribly important – a metaphor for something, I’m not sure what.
The background is iridescent blue stained glass, and I’m using a combination of stained glass, vitreous and smalti.

To share or not to share? That is the question.

Hmm – to share or not to share? I have been back and forth with that several times over the last couple of days. I am used to showing you what I’m working on, and whining about discussing the snags and bumps in the road that I have to work through. I think I learn so much more (and remember so much more) by talking it out here on my blog. However, on this project I just feel like waiting until it’s finished is the right thing to do. So pics of the companion piece to the encaustic diptych will have to wait. And maybe longer than you thought – the deadline, I found out today, has been postponed from June 15 to July 15!! I could have made the deadline I’m sure, but now the pressure’s off. But…I have another project I’m anxious to start, so I’d like to finish it up anyway.
Next up is an abstract that I began thinking would be sort of a stylized peacock feather. But the drawing took off in another direction entirely. I really like it – it will be made of marble and Italian smalti, with a bit of gold smalti as well.

And I cheated a little – there’s a tiny peek at part of the diptych project piece in the picture!

Gnothi Seauton, part deux

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a local artist friend about the project that currently has me stumped, Poppies and Willow. I mentioned that I had started work on another small thing to hopefully shake out the cobwebs and maybe a solution would present itself subconsciously, as sometimes happens. He suggested that maybe the thing to do was to just get in there and attack it. Of course, I think I know what I’m doing, so I told him that I usually end up with something I’m not happy with when I force it. But guess what? I think he was right. At least this time.

I did complete a small project – one to just keep the creative juices flowing, while taking the pressure off the problem. No luck, so I guess I’ll attack and see what that gets me.

This is the small project – Green the Grass Grows – 8” X 8” - transparent smalti, glass beads, tempered glass and polymer clay on mirror.

Uncle! Uncle! Uuunclllle!

What an unproductive week! Ugh. I think a lack of focus has been my primary problem this week – trying to settle back in after travelling for Thanksgiving, my husband left on a business trip Wednesday, and I feel as if I’m fighting off a bug of some sort with a modicum of success, but still fighting. I really want to work on Poppies and Willow, but have run into a design problem with the flower petals that I can’t seem to surmount. Since I often come up with solutions when I stop thinking about them, I decided that what I needed was to start on something else. Of course I could have started on the snow scene I drew up a couple of months ago, but that would have been the easy way. So not my style. So I pulled out a large piece of broken mirror and decided to do a piece that would leave small sections of the mirror uncovered, with brightly colored transparent glass and beads on the rest. But I wasn’t happy with that either, because I decided that it was too big to use as a tool for working out a problem on another piece. Oy.
So I didn’t want to give up idea of transparent glass on mirror, so I pulled out an 8” square mirror designed to place a candle on. Because I had a fair bit of transparent smalti left over from the Dream of the Dragonfly, I decided to go with that instead of stained glass. AND………….. then I ran out of green. Can you hear the sound of defeat? Something between a groan and a sigh? I quit. I’m going to go read a book.
So here’s a blurry photo (including glue smudges on the left). I’d retake the photo, but I had to remove a battery from the camera to put in the wireless mouse to finish this, and it’s just too much to ask to…..oh never mind. Oh, and I broke the “c” key off my keyboard while working on this post. Yeah, Gnarly Head cabernet, here I come!

….And we have a winner!

Thank you to those who wished me a happy anniversary on here! The names were put in a bowl on top of a bit of catnip, and the first one Sophie pulled out was Stratoz! Congratulations! Please send me your email address at mosaicartbyla@gmail.com and I will email you the coupon. It is good for $100 off any available artwork on my website, and valid until January 18, 2010. It is fully transferrable also.

And in other news—the commission is done! Whee! Actually, no it’s not. I have to finish off the sides and back, and clean the little messy bits of thinset from the front. But I’m done with the smalti!!! I cannot possibly tell you how much joy it gives me to put away the smalti! On Monday is the big reveal – stay tuned kids! Isn’t this exciting?

Meet the Artist – Dotti Stone

Remnant
12” X 12”
Marble and Orsoni Smalti

It’s time again for our monthly featured artist! Our October artist is Dotti Stone from Southwestern Virginia. Dotti is a mosaic artist who has been practicing her art for 5 or 6 years, previously working in stained glass and as a portrait photographer. Along with her mosaic art, she teaches mosaic classes for adults, and workshops and art camps for youths.

Dotti chose this piece to be featured because it is a very different style from her representational works, which include landscapes and portraits. After taking a week-long workshop by Matteo Randi last year, she had been considering the use of marble and smalti and using more abstract design ideas.

Dotti says this piece pushed her outside her comfort zone. Although she had mosaiced other 3D forms such as a guitar, mannequin and spheres, this is the first piece for which she created the form from scratch. Not only was the form a part of her creative process, but when she began working on the form, she had no preconceived idea of what she wanted the end product to look like. Dotti says that her process began when a neighbor gave her some leftover fencing. Her intention was simply to create a somewhat abstract, organic looking form on which to apply the glass and marble. While shaping the wire form, she found that the fencing had some ideas of its own! The fencing wouldn’t hold tight folds, so the form began to take on the look of a piece of fabric.

As Dotti began shaping the wire, ideas for a title floated through her mind, mainly “tattered” and “remnant”. She came to the conclusion that tattered didn’t really fit, but remnant was perfect! Her artist statement for the piece explains what this piece has come to represent for her:

Remnant is like a scrap from the past – a little swatch of fabric from a special dress, coverlet or drapery from a bygone era – perhaps from a mother or grandmother. It’s that little connection with the past that is a storehouse of favorite stories and memories, and maybe a few mysteries. Though the materials are hard there is an overall softness about it with the folds and texture. Some discoloration, some silver threads…a keepsake from the past.

While Remnant stands out as a singular piece when compared to her other works, Dotti says she would love to do more projects in this vein in the future, particularly using smalti and marble. Perhaps even turning “Remnant” into a series!

Dotti feels that her work is moving in multiple directions. While she stretches her creativity with abstract, free form work, she still wants to produce representational works as well. Local scenery is often the subject of her mosaics, which she believes can strike a chord with viewers. Meanwhile, she has another mosaic portrait in progress and hopes to do more. Dotti says that for some time she had been nagged by the belief that she had not developed a “uniquely distinct” style. But she has come to realize that certain common threads run through all her work, for example the preciseness and detail inherent in all her pieces.

Please be sure to visit her website at Smith Mountain Lake Mosaics to see her complete portfolio. She can also be contacted at dotti@smlmosaics.com or dstone540@embarqmail.com.

Thank God it’s Friday…

Well, now I remember why I don’t like working with smalti. I love the look of a well done smalti piece, but I find it impossible to get the cuts as accurate as I want them. That also means I have more waste than I think is reasonable. Bah. I will have to see about a smalti workshop (perhaps Matteo Randi’s?) before I’ll be willing to do much more of it. Meanwhile, I’ll just muddle on the best I can with this one. Not much choice, really.

I also want to remind you that on Monday I will be posting the October featured artist profile. This month it is Dotti Stone, a mosaic artist from near Roanoke, VA. Be sure to tune in to see her fantastic new piece!

Today’s agenda includes preparing for the Nashua Art Walk this weekend. The forecast is for rain both days, possibly clearing up by Sunday afternoon. I’m only taking pieces that are suitable for outdoors anyway, so that’s not too big a problem, but it certainly won’t be comfortable to be out in the damp and chill all weekend (even under cover of the gazebo). Phoo.

But…next week I have two lunch dates with friends I haven’t seen in awhile, and a birthday :) and fall is here (my favorite time of year), so at least I have something to look forward to.

And the fun begins!

There’s is just something about starting a new project. And by starting, I really mean starting the actual application of glass. I don’t know why I never think to include the research and design time as part of the “start”, but to me, I haven’t really started something until I’ve glued some glass to something! I should work on that thought process, because I tend to forget to include the time I’ve spent on research and design when asked how long a piece took to produce. But tomorrow – the fun begins!

So for a little refresher, here’s the first watercolor sketch I did for The Dream of the Dragonfly

as you can see, I didn’t actually finish the sketch, I was just establishing colors and relationships. I did another watercolor sketch that I actually finished to send to the client, but I changed the mountains in the background and didn’t like them as much (why do I do these things?!?) So use your imagination and fill in the details on this one.

And….here’s the smalti that arrived while I was out of town!

for the mountains and the lake	for the sky
for the dragonfly	sample board *drool*

Now, of course, I have to explain the photographic problems I had. I can’t explain why, but the color in the photo of the blue and silver tiles is pretty accurate and the others turned out way too yellow. Exact same lighting, time of day, but whatever….. The tiles that are overly reflective in the picture on the lower left are green gold smalti. They will make up the body and veins in the wings. The rest of the wings are transparent smalti, and honestly, photos won’t do them justice anyway. I have never seen a photo taken by anyone that really captures the clarity of them. (LOL - Come to think of it, they almost remind me of Jolly Rancher candies!)

It’s really early, but the sooner I go to bed, the sooner I can get up and get started! (Is there an art-related equivalent to “nerd”?)

Smalti Heaven

Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy!!!!! You may remember that I have been out of town for about 10 days, and I ordered the smalti for the dragonfly commission before I left. So when I came home and opened the boxes, I had to restrain myself from opening all the bags and spreading it out all over the living room table! I decided to keep it in the bags because I’m too tired to re-sort it all! LOL

Tomorrow I will sort it by value and take a pic or two to share with you. But having just rolled in at dinner hour this evening after 10 hours in the car, I can only muster enough energy to oooh and aaaah. Until tomorrow………….

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream…

Work begins on the new commission Dream of the Dragonfly (even though Garden Diva is not quite finished. I’m waiting on the hanging hardware to arrive. Long story). I started a watercolor sketch, which has given me several thoughts on exactly what I don’t want to do :(

At any rate, the basic idea is good, I like the sky and the background mountains. The bluff in front of the mountains is way dark, but since I painted that at 10:00 last night and have had the flu, I’m going to cut myself a break. It is just the preliminary sketch, after all.

I hope to translate the watercolor abstract quality of the sky to the smalti. How successful I will be with that…..well, what would life be without a little mystery?

Indy airport redux.....

Well I finally had the chance to examine the Indy airport mosaic by Dixie Friend Gay up close and personal! It is even more impressive in person than in photos, as one might expect. I flew in almost two weeks ago, and my mother and a friend of hers were there to pick me up. I had mentioned to them about the mosaic and how much I would like to see it, so they were on the look out as well. Marcy, my mother's friend, showed me the brochure she had picked up at the information desk listing all the public art, and said she didn't think it was in there. I skimmed it and exclamed "There! That's it!" Marcy said "I saw that, but that can't be a mosaic, can it?"

As you can tell from the photo of the entire mosaic, from a distance, it could easily be mistaken for a painted mural. But as a public service :) I bring you close ups to inspire........

The glare in the center is unfortunate, but we've discussed my inadequate photography skills many times before - you should expect that by now.

Russian Easter Overture

Well, I am really glad I don't have to waste film anymore taking 40 pictures of a thing in order to get one good one. Viva la digital revolution! Even so, this picture isn't exactly stellar.

This one is titled Russian Easter Overture, after the opus by Rimsky-Korsakov. If you aren't familiar with the music, it's a piece with a huge presence. If you like classical music, definitely check it out.

I have always loved classical music that was grand, expressive, bigger than life. The stuff that made me think of heros - that spoke to themes that every generation faces, both tragic and triumphant. So when my high school band director introduced an adaptation of this piece for us to play in a marching band contest (yes, I was a band geek - not because I was in band, but because I LOVED it!), I embraced it fully. Part of what made it such a great experience was that a few years earlier, it had been performed by a high school band and there had been a tremendous uproar. It seems that the public was very uncomfortable with glorifying anything Russian (remember this was many years ago, when communists were still scary) and the association of Godless commies with the holiest of Christian holidays was blasphemy. So not only did we play an amazing piece of music, the kind that makes you feel your heart swell in your chest, but we got to be rebels as well! What more does a teenager ask?

At any rate, after all those years, I had forgotten about the piece altogether. Then, as I was planning this piece, with the red and gold and the scrolling foliage, I thought it looked a lot like designs that decorate Russian Imperial era enamelwork. That's when my memory of the music was sparked. It very nice to be reunited with an old friend.