In this mosaic, the turquoise mosaic gold heart and waves represent the connection that the coral has to the water, to its beloved. The coral is forever embraced by its beloved, and the waves of this love radiate out into infinity.
General
Sold!
I am so pleased to have my most ardent supporter and most prolific collector add Theme and Variations: All Dreams, to their mosaic art collection. They now own three of the works from my Music To My Eyes series, along with a few other pieces.
I will certainly miss this one, but how thrilling it is to sell such a large work! It will be quite the chore to ship it and hang it, but it will be stunning in it’s new home.
Tulsa Artists' Coalition Annual Members Show at Hardesty Arts
Previous posts about Interior Frequencies
Yesterday, my family and I made it out to see the TAC Annual Members Show at the Hardesty Arts gallery. This is my absolute favorite exhibition space in town. There were COVID precautions in place, including limiting the number of people there at a time. Interior Frequencies was the only mosaic in the show, but it still had a very good spot. I’m happy about that.
The gallery did a really interesting thing to help educate and engage the audience. They put out a basket of tiny pompoms of different colors. Each color represented a metric by which art is judged (see below). Gallery goers are invited to apply these metrics. Vials are installed next to some of the artworks to collect the pompoms as people judge the works by the color-coded metric.
I don’t know what process was used to select which works would be featured for this, but mine is one of them and has already earned plenty of pompoms. I think it’s a great idea and my family and I participated in this exercise ourselves.
Here are some highlights of the show. Enjoy!
Good Wednesday Morning to ya!
From West to East
My little coral heart, from the waters off the Big Island of Hawaii, has found its home in New Brunswick, Canada.
In this mosaic, the turquoise mosaic gold heart and waves represent the connection that the coral has to the water, to its beloved. The coral is forever embraced by its beloved, and the waves of this love radiate out into infinity.
Apparently, the waves radiated all the way to eastern Canada, to someone who heard this little love story and was touched by it. How perfect!
Accepted!!!
Previous Posts About Interior Frequencies
My Wednesday started with the excellent news that the above work, Interior Frequencies, was juried into the TAC (Tulsa Artists Coalition) Annual Members Show. This show will be held at the Hardesty Arts Center in the Tulsa Arts District, which is a gorgeous exhibition space.
I’m so thrilled with this! And quite surprised! Wall space is, of course, limited, and they chose to give a large space to mosaic! This is so awesome!
The exhibit will run Oct. 2 - Dec. 16.
Gaglio Rooster Commission
A couple in Florida recently rebuilt their home after Hurricane Michael damaged most of it. They really wanted a rooster backsplash behind the stove, but design considerations led them to have the stove in a new curved island. Still, they wanted a rooster in the kitchen, and they wanted it to be portable—to be hung as an artwork above the countertop (image below) in a cabinet alcove. The walls are a soft gray.
Years ago, they had purchased a 17” x 17” original rooster painting from a local artist, and they initially asked me to create the design in mosaic. I approached the artist about copying his design and the response was that a licensing fee would be required. The clients did not want to pursue it at that point, so we went about designing a new rooster.
They found a couple of free-to-share images that they liked and I used those to inform my design. Specifically, they really liked the puffed-out chest and full tail feathers of one of the roosters. They wanted a plain background.
The rooster will be done in smalti, with some iridescent highlights, and the background in vitreous, also with some iridescent highlights. I created the cartoon using the Procreate app, using a palette created with the materials shown in the above Rooster Palette. My Procreate skills are modest, at best, but it’s fun to work with. After conferring with the clients, I decided to eliminate a couple of the lighter background shades. They are pleased with the design and happy that I was able to harmonize the mosaic background with the countertop.
Next, I’ll probably draw in some andamento lines and then I am ready to get started on this. Fortunately, I have most of the materials in stock. I did have to order a little more teal and cobalt iridescent tile as I have very little of that.
New Sky Gallery in Tulsa, OK
There is a new little gallery opening here in Tulsa, on Route 66, around 11th and Rockford. It’s a nice little strip with other artsy shops and places to eat. I’m pleased to be able to display some of my decorative pieces, as well as a few small-to-medium art pieces.
Above is my little bit of wall space for some art pieces. The gallery has its grand opening Oct. 3.
Beautiful Wreckage
Isn’t this just awesome!!
About a week ago, our yard people were working in our back yard and accidentally propelled some object at warp speed smack into our laundry room back door. I heard a loud crack and went looking for it. I thought maybe a delivery guy had too enthusiastically thrown a package onto the front porch? No, no deliveries.
As I was walking around the downstairs searching for something amiss, I heard a weird sound coming from the kitchen? No. The laundry room. I had no idea what this sound was: a crackling. Then I saw the laundry room door. Wow! And it just kept crackling for several minutes. Freaked me out.
We are now waiting for it to be repaired, but it looks pretty amazing doesn’t it? At night, when it is dark and the outside light is on, it’s totally mesmerizing! I love it.
Above shows the area from whence everything started, after the big bang, so to speak. The image at the top of the post is a zoomed-in capture of this area.
Sold and Sold!
On their way to their new homes! Thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting my work and for the support of the medium of mosaic!
MAO Minis
Beginning in January 2008, I participated in the Mosaic Artists Organization Yahoo group (MAO) annual monthly challenge. I only made it halfway through the year before getting distracted with other projects. Each month was a different theme, otherwise there were no specific requirements. So I decided to make minis.
The May challenge was Memoryware. I confess I did not know what Memoryware was at that time. Oh well.
I’ve just added the four available pieces to my Small Works that are available for purchase. You can take a closer look at them here.
Time Traveler
I blogged about this clock a while back and you can read that post here.
I took the photo at a bit of an angle to try to bring out the gold highlights on the dishes, but it remains elusive.
A few weeks ago, I repaired and reinforced the edge, and replaced the clock mechanism. Then I had to decide what to do with it. It did not feel right to add a used clock to my decor site. My husband suggested donating to his church and we both felt his mother—original owner of the clock but now deceased—would have liked the idea.
So, it traveled to Egypt and back, and will now reside in the Saints Peter and Paul Coptic Orthodox Church. That’s a good resting place for this time traveler.
Feature Friday: Windows
Do you ever feel like there are just too many ideas to play around with? I got into this idea of multi-planed mosaics, hence my Levels Series. I wanted to do more with it, and still do, but I keep going other directions.
This mosaic, Windows, is the last piece I did in that series. Actually, I did do one more but it has been banished.
Windows (2013) 17.5” x 9.5” | 45cm x 24cm. Marble, smalti, mosaic gold.
Such A Sweet Sale!
Beginner’s Mind №s 1-4 (2015) Each 11” x 9”. Smalti, other glass, stone, mosaic gold.
Last week, I posted that Beginner’s Mind № 2 had sold. Upon receiving it, the new owner was pleased enough with it to purchase the other three as well. That’s pretty darn sweet!
Study in Moderation № 1, in progress
Last week, I was working on another concept for a series of small pieces. I had planned on calling the series Echoes, which was appropriate for the concept. Well, the concept just did not work. Weird. I was very excited about it, but as I started on the design, it just was not working for me.
I immediately shifted to this idea of working with framing spring clips for a series of small pieces. The original concept, though unsuccessful, led to this concept. I’ve been trying to come up with a title but could not, so I am sticking with Echoes for now. Update 7-22-2020: This series is titled Study in Moderation.
After finishing the spring clip and smalti motif (at left), I next needed to decide my andamento. What I did was to take the image at left and import it into my Procreate app.
Then using the app, I cleaned up the background and created a layer to play with a couple of ideas. I settled on a rather classic approach, the result of which you see above. It is just a sketch, a guide. I’m going for something like it but without being too precise.
When I made the piece at right, I had intended to use a looser technique but realized, about 1/4 way through, that I had habitually slipped into a very controlled and precise execution.
I was disappointed but finished it in the controlled and precise manner in which I started it rather than start over.
Although I am happy with this little mosaic, I think it could have been much more interesting had I used a looser and less controlled execution. Or maybe just different. I want to explore different.
Although I’ve started with the smalti inside the spring clips being fairly precise, I felt it necessary because the spaces are very small and difficult to work within. I will see if I can be happy with loosening that up in the next piece. But the stone background is where I will really practice less control. Let’s see if I can do it!
New WIP
Just a little glimpse of the beginning of a new series I’m working on, which is currently untitled. These will be small 6” x 8” pieces featuring framing spring clips and stone. This one has started with smalti inside the clips, but the background will be primarily stone.
I think this will be fun!
Sold: Beginner's Mind № 2
I’m very grateful that this mosaic has found a home! I love the entire series of four and would have been happy to keep them all for myself, but I’m even happier to have sold one of them.
Not sure if you know this, but blue is my favorite color, and this combo of blues totally does it for me. It’s perfect and delicious and oh so awesome! I like all four of them, but I tend to not like a lot of contrast and the yellow and blue is quite a contrast. I’ve always favored this one.
May it be happy and loved in its new home.
Available Works
I’ve created this new cover page for my Facebook Shop button to direct people to either my fine art site or my decorative site. Over the weekend, I added an Available page to my main navigation on my fine art site, making some works available for purchase.
I have a few small pieces, for under $100, and then various sizes and prices from there, and I’m including shipping. Take a look!
Bandon Library Art Gallery Virtual Show: A Silver Lining
A Silver Lining is a gorgeous virtual exhibition presented by the Bandon Library Art Gallery and curated by Tracy Hodson. The current situation with the COVID-19 virus has forced what is usually a very strong actual exhibition into an equally compelling virtual one. The above work by the amazing Lynn Adamo is your first clue as to the quality of the work that you should expect to see.
From Curator Tracy Hodson, except from A Silver Lining essay:
I went to Art School to become a filmmaker, and spent 15 years making films until illness ended that part of my life. When, many years later, I fell in love with mosaic art, one of the things I responded to immediately was the sense of community that mosaic artists create around them, a quality this form shares with filmmaking…So this virtual show is in honor of that atmosphere, that sharing environment where we can all grow our work, test our ideas and experiments, admire others and be admired in turn, share laughs about our errors and get ideas about how to fix them, and generally enjoy the company of our fellows in this difficult but wonderful medium. Thank you all for joining in, and making it so easy and pleasurable for me to get the virtual show together. Keep working!
Sold!
What a nice way to start the day!