Mosaicing...is that a word?

 My most recent work, the front porch

A few years ago I started doing mosaics.  I found this art form/craft to be deeply satisfying.  I think of all the artforms I explore that mosaic is to me a picture of redemption.  Here is this art that takes pieces of stuff, usually tile of some sort, but also everything from broken china to old toys, stuff that might be discarded or overlooked and puts it all together into something new and beautiful.  Beauty from brokenness.

To do a mosaic I often smash things.  A pizza box , a tile, and a hammer is all you need.  Put the tile in the pizza box and begin to smash it.  This can be a lot of fun.  I like to use a pizza box because it keeps the pieces contained and you can keep lifting the lid to see if you have smashed it enough.  Sometimes things get smashed for me.  I am probably one of the few mothers around here that doesn't care if a dish gets broke,  (well, that is not entirely true,  I will never buy square plates again, even though they do look cool.  Way too easily broken.)I have a big pink rubbermaid container that I call my boneyard that I throw broken china into for use someday.  I was actually digging through it tonight.

And to me that is another metaphor, because sometimes those broken bits can sit in the boneyard for years before I find a use for them.  I wonder if they wonder if they will ever be whole again?  Like we do when our lives get smashed to pieces.  We may never be the same, but we can still be something beautiful, it just might take time for the new artwork to be completed.

In the last year I added a tile saw to my mosaic tools.  A nice saw, very pretty and red, and I love it.  With my saw I can cut strips of tile or different geometric shapes.  It is loud and wet but fun.  The first mosaic mural we did with it took a lot of cutting.  Crystal, who assists me with this, was dressed in a garbage sack, with a hoody over her hair, safety goggles, and gloves.  She was quite a sight, very fashionable.  (Crystal was a model on Paris runways,  I kid her about how far she has fallen, from stilettos to black garbage bags and goggles)

I am sure some of my neighbors, who wonder about the strange people who moved into the neighborhood, question what we do do in the garage.  The sound of saws, people dressed in garbage bags looking mysterious, what does go on in that house?

 Cut pieces of found slate, porcelain tile, and stones

Mosaicing is sort of like putting a puzzle together without a picture.  It stretches the brain and it also can be very meditative.  Seeking, gluing, placing, it becomes rythmic and peaceful.  Then when all the pieces are adhered to the substrate,  it all disappears under a layer of grout.  This is fear-inducing, will I ever see it again?  Have  I buried my work forever?  Will it look good?  And then you begin washing the grout away and under your hands something amazing appears, like finding treasure in the sand.  I love mosaicing.

The grouting begins

Finished with the top, next summer the steps