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.

Avian Portraits

Introducing three bird portraits just completed: Loon, Woodpecker, and Crane. Each is about 7 1/2 inches square. I've been poring over my one small bird book and browsing images online to find likely subjects -- the possibilities are endless! I've done nine birds so far, and I have about 15 more small boards to work with from my salvaged shelves.  I'm using stained glass, and finishing the edges with black tiles. I hope to place a few at the Baobab Tree and Parkland galleries this fall.

One of the birds, a parrot, is on its way to New York; every year I contribute a small work to an auction that benefits the World Wildlife Fund, hosted by Humanscale, a company that makes ergonomic and eco-friendly office furniture and accessories. They have been hosting this annual auction of wildlife-themed artwork, which they call "Faces in the Wild," every year since 2000. Last year they raised $42,000 for WWF.

Work in Progress

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For several months I've had a stack of small boards lying around, supposedly to make shelves with. But not being a particularly handy person, I finally realized that the boards would never make themselves into shelves, so I decided to cut them up and make small mosaic "gems" with them. Each piece is about 7" square. You can see my process in the picture - sketches on paper, then transferred onto the boards (there's a toucan in front ready to be mosaicked) and a couple of the finished squares toward the top (not yet grouted). I'm working in stained glass, which I'm enjoying more the more I work with it. The colors are brilliant, and it's easy to cut tiny pieces that stay flat in place (with tile, sometimes a small piece can be hard to place flat due to the ridges on the back of the tile). I have a couple of dozen of these small squares, and look forward to creating a variety of mosaic gems. I'm starting out with a series of birds, and we'll just have to see what comes next. Stay tuned.