Excitement!
Practice firings done, and now onto production!
One of the reasons I bought my kiln and paid a good chunk to have the juice run to it was so that I could make handmade ceramic tiles for a mosaic I had imagined in my mind's eye.
I have the perfect place for it... an area near my deck where Dave and I often sit in gravity chairs at the end of a busy day when the weather is nice. It's one of my favorite spaces in my home (outside of my studio). This is a place where we relax and toss the ball for our dogs and imagine our next vacation, hosting our next gathering, talk about the challenges life tosses our way and dream of our eventual retirement.
The mosaic will be 4' wide by about 16' tall and will include leaves and flowers from my garden pressed into clay, fired and glazed and affixed to my home. Included will be some of our favorite life quotes... not unlike the bronze plaque that adorns our deck funded largely from Home Depot gift cards we received at our wedding from those lovely people in our lives who can't accept the instruction, "No Gifts". The plaque reads... "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our soul blossom." ~Marcel Proust
The mural will also include mirror a la Isaiah Zagar. The last Isaiah Zagar inspired wall, Dave and I completed in 2 days. We were in our yard which is beautifully landscaped. One section of fence remained in cinder block because the neighbor that shared that stretch of fence, Elmira, was in her late 90s and didn't want a wood fence. As you might imagine, we viewed the cinder block as an eyesore especially since the rest of our property had a beautiful good neighbor fence but the relationship with Elmira was far more important than the fence!
It was on a Saturday morning at our local coffee shop that the idea to do a large coverage Isaiah Zagar inspired mural on the cinder block all popped into my head. We raced around town getting materials. Dave slathered the wall with thinset as I strategically placed the tile and in 2 days, we obliterated the eyesore with marbles, leftover tile from our bathroom remodel, and a little bit of this and that: bicycle sprockets, broken mirror, etc.
This turned out to be a temporary installation because three years later, Elmira died and the house was sold and the new neighbors wanted a wood fence. While we were sad to see the mosaic go, the relationship with the new neighbors was more important than the mosaic wall.
Practice firings done, and now onto production!
One of the reasons I bought my kiln and paid a good chunk to have the juice run to it was so that I could make handmade ceramic tiles for a mosaic I had imagined in my mind's eye.
I have the perfect place for it... an area near my deck where Dave and I often sit in gravity chairs at the end of a busy day when the weather is nice. It's one of my favorite spaces in my home (outside of my studio). This is a place where we relax and toss the ball for our dogs and imagine our next vacation, hosting our next gathering, talk about the challenges life tosses our way and dream of our eventual retirement.
The mosaic will be 4' wide by about 16' tall and will include leaves and flowers from my garden pressed into clay, fired and glazed and affixed to my home. Included will be some of our favorite life quotes... not unlike the bronze plaque that adorns our deck funded largely from Home Depot gift cards we received at our wedding from those lovely people in our lives who can't accept the instruction, "No Gifts". The plaque reads... "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our soul blossom." ~Marcel Proust
The mural will also include mirror a la Isaiah Zagar. The last Isaiah Zagar inspired wall, Dave and I completed in 2 days. We were in our yard which is beautifully landscaped. One section of fence remained in cinder block because the neighbor that shared that stretch of fence, Elmira, was in her late 90s and didn't want a wood fence. As you might imagine, we viewed the cinder block as an eyesore especially since the rest of our property had a beautiful good neighbor fence but the relationship with Elmira was far more important than the fence!
It was on a Saturday morning at our local coffee shop that the idea to do a large coverage Isaiah Zagar inspired mural on the cinder block all popped into my head. We raced around town getting materials. Dave slathered the wall with thinset as I strategically placed the tile and in 2 days, we obliterated the eyesore with marbles, leftover tile from our bathroom remodel, and a little bit of this and that: bicycle sprockets, broken mirror, etc.
This turned out to be a temporary installation because three years later, Elmira died and the house was sold and the new neighbors wanted a wood fence. While we were sad to see the mosaic go, the relationship with the new neighbors was more important than the mosaic wall.
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