Feature Friday: Self Portrait

I’m kicking off this new blog idea—Feature Friday. It seems that I have less to blog about these days because I have been slowing down, mosaically speaking. I’ve been pursuing a couple of other interests, doing a bit of volunteering, and just generally trying to more fully inhabit regular old daily life. I am certainly still working and hopefully have a number of mosaics still in me, but I’m working at a much more relaxed pace these days.

Additionally, I’ve been working on a very large mosaic since September and have not done much else in the mosaic realm. I did not even publish my quarterly newsletter for fall for lack of things to say.

In recent months, I have been interested in apps that allow me to stage my mosaics in nicely appointed settings. I have always loved being able to see work in situ as it helps me get a better idea of the work’s dimensions, as well as its presence. There are a lot of such apps out there and I found the search a little overwhelming. But my interest remained.

Then, one day, I saw a fellow artist post some lovely in situ images of her work in which I suspected she was using some kind of app. So, I asked her about it and she recommended Artrooms—shout-out here to Anne Marie Price. I purchased the app for $3.99 for the first month, but I doubt I will continue with a subscription. Working with this app has helped me to further refine my own requirements and I am working on some possible other ways of achieving them.

However, the app is pretty good and very easy to use. I felt that the available rooms/settings were a good backdrop for a lot of my works. Of course, depending on your own work, you may find the settings not suitable for your works or taste. The settings are overall fairly spacious and contemporary, which require larger works or collections of smaller works. My only real complaint is that the app does not offer any small wall space options for smaller works. I will be pursuing other options to accommodate my smaller pieces.

Still, I am pretty happy with my results and I feel it does offer another dimension to the display of my art, and to the visual assessment of mosaics in spaces. I will be—intend to be—sharing a different artwork each time in my Feature Friday blog posts. I can’t commit to every week, but I will try for that. The works I will be featuring are not necessarily new or available works, although some will be. I have enjoyed seeing my own art in these rooms and I wanted to share them with you. I feel that it is very important to show how our art can fit, can speak, in actual spaces.

The first feature, shown above, is a mosaic titled Self Portrait. I blogged about this mosaic and its history back when I was working on it, so I’ll not go into detail here. If you are interested, you can peruse my Self Portrait posts.

In my next Friday Feature, I will talk a bit about the Artrooms app itself and my experience using it. For now, I’ve blathered on long enough.

More Self Portrait

Self Portrait is now framed and I have taken the best photos of it that I am capable of taking. It's very tricky to photograph well, at least for someone of my modest photography skill. The gold against all the black marble—well, I did my best. 

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What's with the Self Portrait title, a few have asked. I'm not exactly sure. Something about the lines—I love line—and how it seems all straight and contained and organized and maybe boring from a distance. But, from closer up, you can see that the background is not really all one color, and there are specs of gold and color and sparkle here and there. And from different perspectives, you see something else—still lines, but more dimension. 

Is this the way I see myself or the way that I imagine other people see me? I'm not exactly sure about that either. 

Self Portrait

I finished it!

I drug this old project out of the closet almost 2 years ago. Hold on, a bit of history may be in order first. About 7 years ago, I was not even 1/8th of the way through this project before I realized that I was on the wrong track. So I did what any normal person would do in such a situation and I got busy with other things. However, not ready to abandon the original idea, I just put the piece away in a closet.

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Self Portrait (2016) 30" x 30" | 76cm x 76cm. Marble, mosaic gold, smalti, Swarovski crystal

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A couple+ years ago, I was cleaning my studio and deciding what unfinished projects to give up on and which ones to consider finishing. I decided to give this project another go and rethought it. I came up with a strategy that would better support the original concept, and also give me an opportunity to improve my hammer-cutting skill. I tested out the idea on a small corner and decided that it was a good way to go.

Long story short: Got into a bad place with my work, took sabbatical, sabbatical turned into quasi-sabbatical which allowed finishing old stuff but not trying new stuff, decided to plug away on this project while new studio renovation was underway, halted work on project—then 1/2 finished—for renovation, resumed work a few months ago after moving into new studio, finally finished it! So, I guess you could say that this has been a 10-year project.

Well, of course, I am not quite sure how much I do or don't like it, although I think the side perspective is pretty cool!. By the time I resumed work on it in the new studio, I was wishing that I had decided on turquoise instead of red but, alas, that ship had sailed, so to speak. The main thing, however, is that I finished it! And I have greatly improved my hammer-cutting skill. So, good deal. Very good deal! And my first project finished in my new studio!

I've yet to frame it but here it is. Please forgive the photo quality.

Morning Light

Dabbling, that's what I am doing. Sticking my toe in the mosaic water. Easing in. 

Are you the type to just jump in the pool, or the type to go in from the steps, acclimating slowing? When it comes to swimming pools, I'm the go-in-slowly-from-the-steps type. In my mosaic life, however, I have been more the jump-right-in type. That served me well in the early years. Now, however, after time away from the work, while simultaneously being invested in the interior analysis of relationship to work, I'm committed to a slower, more thoughtful discipline.

That discipline is aimed at keeping in check both a penchant for taking myself too seriously and an obsessive precision that crosses over into perfectionism and hurt hands, as well as being observant of anything else that leads me to lose sight of the value of my experience of creating.

Well, there's a lot going on there but I am optimistic that it's not quite as heavy a lift as I just made it sound. I'm actually feeling good about getting back to work and believe that I am up to the challenge of such discipline. 

As I dabble in this Sunday morning light, on an unfinished mosaic that I've committed to finishing, I just love the way the light, through a skylight in my new studio, is reflecting off the surface of the mosaic. As much as I love this perspective on the work, this beautiful light is also hampering my ability to work. 

It's good to have the light shine on a process for the perspective that it offers. But that does not mean that so much light is what the process always needs, does it? Well, I did anticipate the problem of the morning light coming through the skylights, which is why I have ordered solar shades which will be installed next week. This should help a lot for the short time that the sun requires to rise above my roof. 

While I'm Not Being An Artist

During my mosaic sabbatical, I've been so very busy not being an artist. I hope to have installment #7 in my Before I Was An Artist series out in the next few days. So, what have I been up to?

Still cooking, literally, and so thoroughly enjoying it! How fabulous! How could I have gotten into my mid-late 50s and just be discovering how satisfying it is to be acquiring some kitchen competence? For the last 3+ weeks I have been focusing on vegan dinners because my husband is doing that very long Easter fast; Orthodox Easter is still about 4 weeks away. So I've been pretty much vegan myself, using a bit of dairy and eggs. I'm discovering great vegan substitutes and learning some things. We have not suffered in the least.

I'm enjoying my two grandsons immensely, one 2 and one 4. We had an Easter Egg Hunt here for them on Easter afternoon. Sean, the 4-year-old, and his Mom had decorated 11 hardboiled eggs for the hunt and also brought some of those plastic eggs with a chocolate treat inside each. My daughter and son-in-law hid the eggs around the property—in the woods and garden and yard. I accompanied Sean on the hunt and when we came upon one of the decorated eggs, he would just walk right by and say "Those aren't the kind of eggs I'm looking for." He would only pick up the plastic ones with the candy inside. A no-nonsense kind of fellow!

There is progress on the renovation front! We have finalized our plans and the construction will start any day now. I'm so excited about my new studio, which makes perfect sense for someone who is trying not to be an artist. Well, I'll take some pics as the project progresses. 

Another thing I've been doing while I'm not being an artist is to work on that 6-year-old mosaic that I wrote about some weeks ago (see here). Yes, it is very strange that someone who is on a mosaic sabbatical and not making art would spend time finishing a mosaic. But I've been spending time here and there working on this thing. If you recall, I had to do a sort of reset on it after having somehow wandered away from the original concept. 

To refresh your memory, I've reposted the pics from my earlier post. 

Rough drawing of the 30" x 30" very simple, repeating pattern. It is basically 9 squares, each 9" x 9", with an approx. 1.5" border around the edge.

Original work done on one of the 9" squares, which I concluded was the wrong approach some 6+ years ago.

Back in February, I scraped off the original attempt and repaired the substrate, which you can see in the lower left corner of the image below. Then I spent a few weeks getting things ready for the new direction, repainting the sides of the gold lines, cutting marble, etc. Finally, I started working on it an hour here, a couple of hours there, some days not at all, really trying not to get too absorbed in it.

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You can see that I've got quite a reset going on here. I chose a dark background with red for the sides of the lines to boldly exploit the basic concept.

I've got the contrast that I needed for the repeating pattern of gold lines, and the red sides of the lines really stand out when changing viewing perspective. 

I'm leaving a gap, almost 1/8", between all the implied triangles within the 9 squares, creating shadow lines which both connect and separate as they define squares, triangles, and diamond shapes.

It's really a very simple design, isn't it?

I'm getting some great practice using the hammer, cutting the marble into the roughly 1/4" square pieces, although I am using nippers to shape them up and cut the diagonals. Still, my right hand is fine and seems to have recovered from my injury last spring. 

Below are a couple of detail shots on which you can click to zoom. 

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It's quite a tedious project and, at this point, not much more than a technical challenge. But, in that sense, it seems a good fit for me at this time. I need to be making something and working with my hands. I think I'll actually get this finished, eventually, probably this year. And I think I'll like it, and I will be happy that I did not give up on it. 

And that's a worthy goal, don't you think? Whatever you're making, and whether or not you're an artist. Just to like what you make and be happy that you made it.