Keeping On, Keeping On

As many of you know, I was sidelined for several months this past spring by a serious illness and a long recovery. But I'm glad to report that I am back in business. Not quite up to speed yet, but getting there. Everyone whose friendship kept me going has my heartfelt thanks.

Now I am anxious to get back to art! I have several projects in the works, one of them this bird-in-progress that was inspired by the buckets (OK, not buckets, but boxes and bins) full of faux pearls in various sizes and shapes that I've collected over the years. Sometimes it's the materials that inspire a design, rather than the reverse: starting with a design and then choosing materials for it, which is the usual pattern. When I started it, last fall, I didn't have a finished product in mind. I still don't, but I find it evolving every time I sit down at my work table to look at it. Sometimes I add a string of pearls; other times I just stare at it for a while. Recently I found a perfect white shadowbox frame for it, which is an impetus to finish it. I'm thinking right now of filling in the body with more lines of pearls -- at least a few, not sure if I want to completely fill it -- and maybe fill the background with clear beads (since I painted the substrate) or black and dark blue ones. I'll just have to try some and see how they look. Just like life -- you keep trying until it works.

The Hoopoe

... is about 10 to 12 inches long - about the size of a crow - and has a slightly curved beak and that wonderful crown, which it usually wears laid back but whips up when excited. I saw one in Kashmir one summer; first you would hear the "hoop-hoop-hoop" call, and then it would swoop down onto the front lawn to search for insects or lizards. When it flies, the black and white on its wings flashes. 

This mosaic dyptych is now showing at the new Bolivar Art Gallery in Sarasota, at 506 S. Pineapple in the Burns Square area. The gallery is open First Friday evenings for the monthly Art Walks; also Tuesday through Thursday 11-5 and Friday/Saturday 11-6. I had a tough time finding small raised letters to incorporate into my mosaics; the H, P and E in this mosaic are from a child's alphabet learning kit, but they are actually a little larger than I really wanted; the Os are brown jade rings. The craft stores have mostly tiles with letters on them, like Scrabble tiles; if anyone knows where to find raised letters, I'd be very grateful to hear about it!

Mosaic for Charity

Last weekend I completed this mosaic to contribute to a project being organized by Eve Lynch of Kraken Mosaics in Fort Myers.  She put out a call for contributions of mosaics to include as part of the outdoor environment for the J.H. Messina Children's Center in Fort Myers. My inspiration was a particular species of crane - the black-crowned - but after finishing it I realized that it also could have come right out of a Dr. Seuss book.

Mosaics for charity is, of course, not a new concept. I recently learned of a nonprofit called Piece by Piece, which teaches disadvantaged adults to create mosaic works of art to sell for extra money. Their slogan is "Recycled art for a new cycle of life." They make the analogy that life itself is a process of putting together bits and pieces to make a whole person. The organization is headquartered in Long Beach, California, and some of the works being created are extraordinarily beautiful.

A Wedding Present

A friend's daughter is getting married this weekend, and I wanted to do something special instead of simply checking something off the registry list (besides, I could afford probably one teacup, which wouldn't be very useful!). This small mosaic is about 7 inches square, and it's inspired by the couple's china pattern, a Jasper Conran design called "Chinoiserie." I printed out a few notecards to match, and tied everything up with a blue bow.

I've always felt that handmade presents are so much nicer than store-bought things anyway. It's like giving a bit of yourself along with the object, and strengthens the bonds of blood and friendship. Parents know this; witness the hordes of refrigerators across the world plastered with little ones' paintings and drawings! 

The Baobab Tree

The Baobab Tree is a gallery in the Village of the Arts, in Bradenton. A couple of years ago, when I was looking around for venues where I could display my mosaics, I looked at all the galleries in the Village and thought the Baobab would be a good fit because it carries such an eclectic mix of styles and media. I approached the owners, Chris and Gordon Turner, and they have been kind enough to show a few of my pieces every season. They have also become good friends. This year, they are showing several of my Avian Portraits, including the Toucan pictured here.

Chris and Gordon travel every summer and bring back artwork from Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, and other exotic destinations, as well as from their artist friends in the Northeast, where they hail from originally. Both have taught art and continue to produce it; Chris is an accomplished painter in acrylic and watercolor, and Gordon creates charming fish and other sculptures using weathered wood and found objects. The gallery shows their work as well as local and not-so-local artists.

The Baobab Tree is open on the First Friday of the month and the first Saturday, and other times by appointment. The gallery is located at 1113 12th St. in Bradenton, telephone 914-447-3795. The next First Friday opening is October 1, from 6 to 9 p.m. Please visit!

First Hello

Today is Sunday, the cat is napping and it's too hot to work in the garden, so here I am. This is the first post for a blog about mosaic and art and anything else that I feel like writing about.

My thanks to my friend Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson, a wonderful collage artist, who inspired me to start blogging! Her blog is called "Paper Paintings". I love her use of vibrant colors, and she creates lots of birds in her paintings, which is a subject I love as well.

The pictures show a sculpture that I've just started. The form was given to me by another friend, Margo Barber, the founder of the Manatee Mosaic Group, which I joined a few months ago. We spend a very happy day once a month inspiring each other with our current mosaic projects at a lovely retreat center in the woods. Margo brought me this duck form after hearing me tell how I like to work on 3-D mosaics. I decided that if I were a plain duck, I'd like to be decorated with something really fancy, so I've started mosaicking flamingoes all over it. I'm using pink glass tiles in 3 or 4 shades, cut into small pieces. The picture shows a start; I'll post more as I continue working on it.