Dreadful.
Interior Frequencies № 9: Dread, side perspective
Next up: Hopeless.
Interior Frequencies № 9: Dread 9” x 12” | 23cm x 30cm. Kismet glass, colored cement
Etude, in situ
Feature Friday: Etude
The first in my Music To My Eyes series, Etude looks quite elegant on this blue wall above a velvet blue sofa, don’t you think? It’s quite fun to put my mosaics in rooms and see how they work. The size of the panels is a little off as they look a little bigger than they actually are. With the artroooms app, it is difficult to size and align multiple images. Although the app does ask for dimensions, it seems inconsistent in how it uses them when placing the art on a wall. These panels are 12” | 30cm wide, but on the wall they look more like maybe 14”?
Etude (2007) 24" x 40" | 97cm x 102cm (each panel 24" x 12" | 97 cm x 61 cm).Mosaic gold in blue, green, and turquoise, smalti, glass beads, faceted garnet. In a private collection.
This mosaic gave me my first experience working with colored gold. I did not realize that there would be light to dark shades in a single kilo when I bought it in Venice. When I started playing around with it, I wanted to use the gradation for effect. However, sorting a kilo of gold and separating into light, light-medium, medium, dark medium, and dark is not easy. Being metallic, it is so light-sensitive and just looking at it at a different angle affects its appearance.
Etude, side perspective
Etude, bead detail
Interior Frequencies № 8: Shame 9” x 12” | 23cm x 30cm. Kismet glass, colored cement
Interior Frequencies № 8: Shame
Now that I am nearing the end of the series—four more to go—I am thinking about how to arrange them as a group of 12. More importantly, I don’t think that I can get the lighting the same for each of them, and the lighting really affects the black background. Hmm… I’ll have to ponder that.
Interior Frequencies № 8: Shame, side perspective
Next is Dread.
Interior Frequencies № 7: Conflicted 9” x 12” | 23cm x 30cm. Kismet glass, colored cement
Interior Frequencies № 7: Conflicted
So, in my experience of feeling conflicted, which has not been much, I’ve found myself going back and forth between two things for which I have equal intensity of feeling. The intensity of feeling is so equal that the two things almost feel like one thing, making it difficult to separate them and finally choose.
I chose these colors because they feel emotionally pensive to me.
Interior Frequencies № 7: Conflicted, side perspective
My next one will be Shame.
L’entrata , in situ
Feature Friday: L'entrata
In June of 2006, I attended an Orsoni 2-week Master Class in Venice. This was a big move for me. Up to that point, I had been learning on my own and mostly focusing on things more decorative. I had attempted some wall art pieces, but was not really thinking of myself as an artist, or even a mosaicist: I was more of a hobbyist.
My master class experience was pivotal in pointing me in the direction of making art and moving from hobbyist to artist. Even now, 24 years after I first dipped my toes in the mosaic world, I don’t strongly identify as an artist. The label just does not feel comfortable to me. I more solidly identify as a mosaicist, I suppose. Most accurate would be someone who loves to make things.
Inspiration photo
L’entrata (2007) 42" x 32" | 107cm x 81cm. Smalti. In a private collection.
Anyway, after returning from the Orsoni class, I decided to make L’entrata, which was inspired by the above left photo that I took from my table in the classroom, which at that time was upstairs. I was so inspired to work more with smalti and took on this rather ambitious representational work. I used only Orsoni smalti and did my best with the palette and skill I had at the time.
I loved working on this despite the huge technical chore I was attempting. As I recall, it took about 5 months for me to finish. I had originally tried to do the door frame with some of the dimension in the photo, but I lacked both the skill and palette to figure it out. So I ripped out the door frame and replaced it with all dark brown.
Interior Frequencies № 6: Humiliation 9” x 12” | 23cm x 30cm. Kismet glass, colored cement
Interior Frequencies № 6: Humiliation
Hmm. I wish I could explain this. Again, I am just going with what feels right at the time. This was going to be Shame, but it felt more like Humiliation.
Interior Frequencies № 6: Humiliation, side perspective
The next one will be Conflicted.
Interior Frequencies № 5: Depression 9” x 12” | 23cm x 30cm. Kismet glass, colored cement
Interior Frequencies № 5: Depression
I’ve not suffered from depression myself, so I relied on my younger daughter’s experience to guide me on this one. The dark ochre bump represents a pang of self-loathing, and the small yellow speck represents a brief bit of joy.
Interior Frequencies № 5: Depression, side perspective
I’m treating this series like an assignment. I allow no more than a week to finish each one, I’m using this linear frequency-like format, and I’m using a single type of glass and its palette. This is a very restrictive approach that is—surprisingly—giving me a lot of freedom.
For example, the next one is Shame. I went to choose the glass and tried to work out a palette with reds, pink, bright green, which I thought were the proper colors. But it just did not feel right. Instead, I chose a cool palette of purple, blue, teal, and bright green. It jus felt right to me at that time. So, I went with it.
Then, I started designing the lines, and I was a little stuck. I gave it another try and came up with something that felt right, that made sense to me. Because of the time limit, I made myself just go with it. I know that it may not look like shame to anyone else, but I’ve given myself permission to just go with what comes to me. It’s really liberating.
Whatever this exercise produces, I’m feeling like it is a very good experience for me.
So, on to № 6, Shame. I have decided to do 12, so I am halfway there.
Stabby, in situ
Feature Friday: Stabby
in Feature Friday, Stabby
Stabby is shown here in her permanent home and not in an Artrooms staged room. I made this mosaic for my daughter in 2018. This was a very satisfying project even though I was not wowed with the idea when my daughter first asked me to mosaic a pixilated unicorn head.
I blogged about this mosaic as I was making it here.
Stabby (2018) 37” x 37” | 91cm x 91cm. Smalti, vitreous, contorni, Kismet, glass rods, art glass, other glass, Swarovski crystals. In a private collection.
Interior Frequencies № 4: Invisible 9” x 12” | 23cm x 30cm. Kismet glass, colored cement, paint.
Interior Frequencies № 4: Invisible
Previous Interior Frequencies posts
Not much to say about this one.
Interior Frequencies № 4: Invisible, side perspective
Now, on to Depression.
Interior Frequencies № 3: Self-Loathing 9” x 12” | 23cm x 30cm. Kismet glass, colored cement
Interior Frequencies № 3: Self-Loathing
Previous Interior Frequencies posts
This one was the most fun so far! I wanted a palette that was ugly, actually pukey. That’s right, inspired by vomit. What can I say? When I think of self-loathing, I think of vomit. Or maybe it just makes me feel sick. Not sure. Self-loathing is a very ugly thing, an internal disgust with ourselves that roils within. If only we could just vomit it out.
Well, my apologies for going off in such an unpleasant direction this morning. About the lines, or frequency waves: I can’t offer any kind of meaning or symbolism; I just went with how I was feeling when I created the design.
Interior Frequencies № 3: Self-Loathing, side perspective
Next up: Invisible
Rhythms: January and February, in situ. (2008) Each 9” x 9” | 23cm x 23cm. Stone, smalti, piastrina, porcelain, minerals, shell, other glass, Swarovski crystals, seed beads.
Lighting Matters
Yesterday, I hung these two mosaics in my studio bathroom, which has a small skylight. The light coming from above does wonders for the textural appearance.
Familial Wounds, in situ
Feature Friday: Familial Wounds
Created in 2019, this mosaic is more symbolic than a lot of my work. Well, it may be more accurate to say that I am more aware of its symbolism than I may be in a lot of my other work. The making of this work became more and more personal as it progressed, which was both good and bad.
Bad in that it became so stressful by the end that I messed up my jaw and had months of resulting pain that an acupuncturist finally connected to my jaw. Too much clenching. Good in that it served as a months-long meditation about my own family history, which helped me put things in a broader and clearer perspective.
Familial Wounds (2019) 29” x 38” | 74cm x 97cm. Smalti, mosaic gold, porcelain, colored cement. In a private collection.
Here is a description of the work:
It was the concept of psycho-emotional wounds from which this mosaic initially emerged. As it progressed, I began to meditate more about my own interior wounds, which refined the meaning of this work to that of familial wounds, in particular. I thought of generations past, on both my mother’s and father’s side, and how wounds, in the form of unhealthy behavior patterns, had been passed down through the ancestral lines. Some of our wounds are of this kind of ancestral lineage. Other wounds we acquire as we live and grow and navigate our current lives, and they may be the start of new unhealthy generational patterns as we unconsciously pass them on to our children.
The mosaic suggests two levels of wounding. The dimensional wounds are active wounds, ones that agitate us in present time. These wounds have not yet healed and scarred over, and they still influence, may even dictate, our current behavior. The less apparent wounds are in the background, etched into our interior landscape. They may be scars—the remnants of fully healed wounds—or they may be dormant, awaiting certain circumstances to come to the surface.
Our wounds live deep in our blood-red tissues. Even when healed, the scars remain. They are part of who we are, not just things that happened to us. They shape and define us, for good and for ill. No matter how much we may suffer, however, there is always hope to be found in the light of awareness and understanding, indicated by the gradation toward the upper left of the mosaic. And, healing is always in progress by our bodies’ own mending energies, and by divine grace, both of which are expressed in the gold, lightning-like veins.
Familial Wounds, side perspective detail
Interior Frequencies № 2: Rage 9” x 12” | 23cm x 30cm. Kismet glass, colored cement
Interior Frequency № 2: Rage
Previous Interior Frequencies posts
What color(s) does rage feel like to you? These reds and black are one version of rage. But there is a kind of white, blinding rage that I am still thinking about. With the palette that I have, I’m not sure yet if I can express that. But I may end up trying. Eventually.
Interior Frequencies № 2: Rage, side perspective
Now, I’m moving on to Self-Loathing.
Nightlife, in situ
Feature Friday: Night Life
My idea with this work was that of a group of young people, all dressed up for a night on the town, feeling so full of themselves and invincible and free, like young people are wont to do. Most of us have been there, if we were lucky. Thank goodness that it is usually a short-lived period. But, what a feeling!
Nightlife (2009) 10" x 23" | 25cm x 58cm. Smalti, mosaic gold, vitreous glass, contorno, black onyx, garnet, glass, swarovski crystal. In a private collection.
Nightlife, detail
Interior Frequencies № 1: Loss 9” x 12” | 23cm x 30cm. Kismet glass, colored cement.
Interior Frequencies
All Interior Frequencies posts.
Interior Frequencies is a sub-series of my Frequency Series. I wanted to explore emotional states using this simple linear format and the Kismet palette. I’m using Kismet because it is well-suited to this linear approach and has a fairly good palette. Cutting it in half and placing it on its side offers a smalti-like reflective quality.
I am interested in the exercise of expressing challenging emotional states in such a minimal way. My goal is to just do this for myself, for the exercise of it, and not to produce something that I think is beautiful. This is quite a different thing for me and I am relishing operating outside my usual box.
Interior Frequencies will be a single work comprising of a maximum of 12 pieces. Or maybe 9. Or maybe 6. No less than 6. We’ll just see how things go.
Here is the first in the series, titled Loss. Next up is rage.
Interior Frequencies № 1: Loss, side perspective
Pulse, in situ
Feature Friday: Pulse
This mosaic, Pulse, was the first in what became my Lines series. I was inspired by Brit Hammer’s “stripes” mosaics and wanted to take the idea of working in lines and make it my own.
Pulse (2008) 11.25" x 30" | 26cm x 76cm. Marble, granite, smalti, piastrina, glass, hematite, mother of pearl, quartz, ceramic, porcelain, pearls, mosaic gold, Swarovski crystal. In a private collection.
I started this work at the end of 2007 and it carried over into 2008. We had a terrible ice storm that year that caused wide-spread power outages. We had no electricity for a week. My husband went to work, along with our two kids who I was home-schooling at the time. I stayed home with our dogs and tried to keep working on this mosaic.
The temperature inside the house got down into the 50s which made it difficult to work. Also, it was rather dark for mosaicking. I moved downstairs into the kitchen to work, which had a little more exterior light coming in, and was also warmer due to the fireplace.
Pulse, detail
In this work, I was expressing that my heart beats in the shades of gray, not in the extremes of black and white. I can muck around in the gray shades around all manner of life issues for hours on end.
I was inspired by these lines from a Rumi poem:
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.”― Rumi, from A Great Wagon
Four Little Mirrors
in Decorative, New Work
I spent the last couple of weeks making these little decorative mirrors. It’s always fun to take a little deco break. The photos are not great, but good enough to show what I’ve been up to. The dark blob in the bottom left of the mirrors is my reflection. Mirror glass is ridiculous to photograph and I just did not want to spend the time on it. Since I’m only blogging it, I decided it was not critically important.
9” x 9” | 23cm x 23 cm. Mirror and Van Gogh glass.
9” x 9” | 23cm x 23 cm. Mirror and Van Gogh glass.
9” x 9” | 23cm x 23 cm. Mirror and Van Gogh glass.
9” x 9” | 23cm x 23 cm. Mirror glass.
I Heard The Mountain Sing, in situ
Feature Friday: I Heard The Mountain Sing
I Heard The Mountain Sing 30” x 12” Marble, amethyst specimens, pyrite, glass, porcelain, mosaic gold.
Today’s feature was inspired by a trip to Zermatt, Switzerland, and the large bottom amethyst specimen that I found in a little shop there.
I was also happy to be able to use a few other amethyst specimens that I have had for many years. I found the two at the top of the mosaic (detail below) in Myrtle Beach, SC, about 15 years ago. I’ve never seen any like them since.
The photos at left and below were taken in morning light from my studio skylights, which is warmer than the one used for the in situ image at top.
You can read more about this mosaic here.
I Heard The Mountain Sing, detail
Meandering and Trespassing, in situ (2014) Each 12" x 12" | 30 cm x 30 cm. Stone, mosaic gold, porcelain, glass. In a private collection.
Feature Friday: Meandering and Trespassing
Don’t you just love a blue wall? I think my mosaics, from my In the Woods Series, look happy here. Yes, another Artrooms setting. The stone used in these mosaics, which is a shale, is from the woods behind our house.
Happy Friday!
From left to right: Each 9.5" x 11.5" | 24cm x 29cm. Kismet glass, colored cement. Trans Frequency № 2, Lesbian Frequency № 3, Agender Frequency, Pride Frequency № 2, Lesbian Frequency № 1.
Five Frequencies
Here are all five of the LGBTQ+-themed frequecies I’ve just finished up, all based on LGBTQ+ flag colors.