So, that potential commission that I blogged about did come through after all. It was a bit of a lengthy, touch-and-go kind of process, and I actually thought it had gone and was not going to happen. But then, after another month, I heard from them and they were ready to move on it.
Oklahoma State University is developing a medical complex in downtown Tulsa. It is not complete yet, but they wanted mosaics of the skyline with the actual and future OSU buildings. It was not easy to get the right view as the complex is rather spread out. They wanted five “table top” pieces, which they defined as being as much as 24” wide. Eventually, they were able to get a couple of good Google Earth images from which I could work.
Below is the image that I used to create the to-scale drawing that follows. The Google Earth image was very small, however, and it was tricky to translate some of the buildings and/or features. In a 9” x 24” mosaic, on their time frame and within their budget, I could not get very detailed. We needed to bring out the OSU buildings and visually tie them together, even though the complex is not finished. So I honed in on the OSU orange and used it, along with more detail, to help make the OSU buildings visually prominent. So all the front buildings with the bright orange are the OSU buildings. The background buildings that look a paler orange are actually more of a terra cotta color, which you can see in the finished first mosaic.
Google Earth image
My rendering of the Goggle Earth image, created using the Procreate app. This rendering included some future construction
Initially, they wanted all five—gifts for donors—by Christmas, but I was not comfortable committing to that. So they asked for three of them by Christmas. Confident that I could do that, and with an approved budget, we signed a contract, effective Oct. 1.
I started the first one (below) before Oct. 1, as I had material on hand and really wanted to get a good idea of how much time I needed, how much detail I could manage, and generally work out any issues. I am now starting the second one.
Tulsa/OSU Skyline 9“ x 24” | 23cm x 61cm. Vitreous glass. Digitally framed.
The vitreous glass is a mix of French Opio and Italian Bisazza, and also Trend. Yes, that Bisazza is old, as well as the Opio, neither of which are available now, although Bisazza is basically Trend now, if I have that right. I priced the work for them using either vitreous or smalti and they chose the vitreous. It is less expensive, I had a good amount in inventory, and I thought it more practical for this project, considering the time issue. I knew I would be using a lot of straight cuts and thought vitreous would be a little easier—translate to faster—than smalti. Still, vitreous has its own issues, like dealing with those darned mitered edges. And the Opio is the hardest vitreous I have every worked with!
The only issue that I encountered was the grout. I was hoping to use a single color for the sky as for the non-sky, but after grouting it all in a mix of half gray thin set and half white, I thought the sky grout lines were a little too dark. However, I did not want to go any lighter for the non-sky part. I felt like it was important for the grout lines to show to help give definition for the buildings and the mid-gray works well for the buildings, whether light or dark. So I reworked the sky grout using 2-1 parts of white to gray thin set and was much happier with it.
Their initial idea was for the five smaller panels, and then a very large one to be installed in one of the buildings. I don’t think the idea for the large mosaic has been settled upon yet.