Margaret Almon Mosaics

Calliope Recycled Glass Tile: Delightful Variegation for Mosaics

I am always looking for new tesserae to create mosaics with, and when I saw the Calliope Series of  Recycled Glass Tile at Opus Mosaics, I was hooked!  The variegation is especially enticing, allowing for visual texture, and giving a lively feeling, in motion with swirls.  The sheen is lightly iridized.  According to Hakatai, the Oregon Importer of these tiles, they are 50% recycled glass, 90% of which is post-consumer.  As soon as they arrived, I was in the studio experimenting.  This trivet on the right has a border of Calliope tiles in dark and light groups, plus some solid glass tile and a center of Vitrium tile(made in Point Pleasant, PA!)

I also have a sheet of Garden, in shades of blue and green.

Hammer and Hardie here I come! My Log came.

I've had the mosaic cutting tool set of hammer and hardie for longer than I want to admit, waiting until I found a log to use as a base.  Finally, I found Ted Frumkin's woodworking studio in Western PA, and he was able to take a piece of Catalpa just the right size and clean it up for me and ship it across the state, just in time for a monster snow storm!

Stratoz came charging up the stairs with a big box yesterday, and it was my log!  We didn't even get mail the day before that, so this was very exciting.  He heaved the log up onto my drawing table, and now we need to drill a hole and sink the hardie.  Then I will be set to use the traditional technique for cutting smalti, still favored in Italy.  

I learned to use this tool at a mosaic workshop at Snow Farm: The New England Craft Program.  You balance the piece of glass smalti on the finely honed edge of the hardie and tap it with the hammer and it shears into pieces.  Smalti can be a challenge to nip with wheeled mosaic nippers, so I'm looking forward to getting to know my new tool!

 

 

Housewarming Commission: Mosaic Candle Holder

A friend recently commissioned a candle holder as a housewarming gift.  She wanted sage green and earthtones, and it was a cool combination of colors to work with. 

Most important with a candle holder is the need for translucence to really let the light shine.  Weldbond can get trapped with no air when gluing glass to glass, and take months to turn from white to clear.  Once I used silicone, but it was an oozing gooey mess, and the odor was strong.

I realized I had a bottle of Mac Glue, which I had bought but hadn't tried yet.  Mac glue is thin, sort of like diluted hair conditioner, and has no vertical hold, but my base was square, I could do one side at a time laying flat. At first it didn't seem to have any adhesive qualities at all!  But after 1/2 hour or so it began to get tacky.  It dried clear by the next day and didn't ooze into the grout lines.   

I used a combination of vitreous glass tiles swirled with coppery aventurine, which had an opalescent glow, and transparent stained glass for a more intense light.  Because the  bottom edge didn't need to be translucent, I used VanGogh glass, which is clear glass painted on the back, and has a swirly texture.  

My friend said the recipients loved it, and I am honored to have my work as part of their new home.  May it bring them much light and joy!

Celtic Cross Mosaics: Circle of Light

From the first time I thought of making a mosaic cross for my husband, I was drawn to the Celtic Cross, with its circle of light juxtaposed at the heart of the cross.  This particular form of the Christian symbol has many layers of folklore as to its origins, from remnants of an old sun god joining his disc to Christianity, to the circle representing eternity and God's love.  Stephen Walker, metalsmith, has an interesting article on Celtic Cross History and Symbolism. 

The cross I made for Wayne is unusual with its crazy paving.  I had a scrap of stained glass with a graduated shading from red to magenta to purple, and irregular pieces were the best way for me to preserve the color progression.
Putting the iridized glass together for the circle was a powerful experience, as the glow was intensified by the teal glass background, and incarnating the hope of a light shining in the darkness.  The cross below is a commission, which incorporates the same iridized glass into the circle, but this time the glass is in a less linear form, emanating like one of my mandalas.  Most recently, I experimented with some of the many offcuts from nipping glass, to make a patchwork cross on slate which has tremendous light catching abilities.  

My mother, who is a minister, suggested a cross with interlocking rings, for weddings, and I made a small one, 5x7 inches, which was a challenge working on a much smaller surface than 10 or 12x 14 inches. 

 

Mosaicing a Chair for the Chair-ity Auction

A friend, who had an unfortunate flooding of her basement studio, asked me if I would consider mosaicing the chair she was going to do for the Dan Bilodeau Memorial Chair-ity Auction, since reconstructing the basement has wreaked havoc with her art-making.  I decided I was up for the challenge of a three dimensional child's rocking chair by August 14th, and after much gluing, the grouting is underway. 

First, I placed it on my low drawing table, and bolstered the runners with bubble wrap so I didn't have to mosaic a chair in motion.  The indented portion of the seat was just right for a mandala shape. 

Then, I hoisted it onto my drafting table and tipped it on it's back, the runners digging into the table like ice skates, which made for a fairly stable surface.  It's been fun to figure out how to work on different parts of the chair, and have so many possibilities.  I am resisting covering the whole thing.

This annual event takes place in Phoenixville, PA, and the chairs are on display in store windows  until the auction on October 17th, 7-9 pm, Franklin Hall@Franklin Commons 400 Franklin Ave, Phoenixville.  Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door, and  the proceeds will benefit the Phoenixville Area Children's Learning Center. 

For more photos, check out my Facebook Fan Page, Margaret Almon Mosaics. 

Or check out the chair on display for the next week or two at the Artisans Gallery and Cafe in Phoenixville!  And get an Italian tarte filled with chocolate pastry cream while you are at it. . .

Related Post:

Recycled Glass Tile:  Gorgeous Sustainability   (Includes a photo of the grouted chair!)

Beautiful Thrift: Coin Quilt Patterns in Mosaic

I'm getting ready for the Delaware show, and I'll be bringing some mosaics in a new pattern, Chinese Coins.  Coin quilts go by many names, including Roman, Chinese and Stacked coins, and I fell in love with the variation in widths of the strips and the rhythm this creates.  Gwen Marston, author of Liberated String Quilts, considers them the "Jackson Pollock" of quilt pattern.

In this pattern, coins are made of strings of fabric, and are a way to use up scraps that are too small for anything else.  I was interested to read an article by Kimberly Wulfert describing string quilts as a product of economic depression, a form of utilitarian thrift.  The first time I saw a string quilt in a display of Amish quilts, I was fascinated by the dynamism of lights and darks rippling through vertical lines. 

Most of these quilts had a hard life because they were used intensely, and they filled a need.  Some that have survived are in the quilts of Gee's Bend.  Auburn University's Women's Studies department put together a very cool project putting the Gee's Bend quilts in context of history, geography, and complete with activities for kids and ideas for teachers. 

I was looking for a new pattern to do in mosaic, and kept looking at Chinese Coins, and thinking I couldn't find a way to translate it into glass, but then one day I decided I wanted to find a way.  It was fun choosing different types of glass, and like the quilters, I had many strips already cut from other projects, just waiting to be used up. 

Come visit me in Booth #422 at the Pennsylvania Guild Fine Craft Fair July 25 & 26, 2009 in Wilmington, DE, and check out the beauties of thrift and abstraction.

Related Posts:

Ann Hermes Miniature Quilts

Quilts of Glass: Log Cabin

A Mosaic Studio with a View

My first summer in the studio was a revelation when I looked out the window, and was greeted by the garden. Stratoz is out there right now, attending to the plants.  My contribution consists of going to nurseries to choose plants, pulling weeds and being appreciative.  Every year we've added a few more perennials, and to witness their return the following spring is exciting.  A garden is like a mosaic, with all the individual pieces essential to the nature of gardens, giving the eye much delight, as they combine together into the whole. 

Beauty, delight, joy.  These attributes are what I want to cultivate in my life and my art.  Flowers are compelling inspirations with their intense color, and texture from velvet to satin, iridescent or sparkly.  My mandalas originate in flowers, and to have my studio as a window onto the world of flowers is more than I ever expected to have. 

Scrappy Mandala Grouted

I promised a post-grout photo of this scrappy mandala.  I love how the "raven" colored grout blends so well with the slate.  I was wondering why the photo came out orangey in the upper left section of the mosaic, and realized that the red stained glass was reflecting the plants outside our window, as I take my photos on our old wide windowsill.  If you look closely you can see bits of green reflected.  Photographing mosaics is always a challenge.  A mosaic is like chameleon!  Depending on what the light is like, the translucency of the tesserae, the angle.  It's magical setting up at a craft show and turning on all the halogen lights.  I've had people say they could've sworn the mandalas were lit from within.  

Related Page:

Mandalas

Clear, Bright, Gleaming: Easter and Clearance of the Spirit

This morning I went to my husband's Episcopal church for a sunrise Easter service.  I don't usually go, but this was the first year in my memory of a sunrise service, and I loved this as a child.  In Edmonton,this involved getting up at 4:30 in the morning, and putting on a new pastel Easter dress and a warm coat over top of that, and then standing outside, often with snow still on the ground, and an overcast sky, with the Moravian Trombone choir intoning beautiful chorales, and singing "Jesus Christ is Risen Today: Alleluia!" As the Moravian Music Foundation notes, the 18th and 19th Century Moravians considered music a necessity of life. 

This morning's service began in darkness at 6:00 am, with the lighting of the Paschal candle, and proceeded by candlelight vigil as the sun rose, and the stained glass windows became illumined.  Growing up in the Moravian church, I was accustomed to simple spare sanctuaries.  As an artist, the Episcopalian church is a revelation, with art as part of the spiritual life, art as a way to reflect as much light as possible. 

As I prepare for the Bucks Chapter Guild of Craftsmen Craft Studio Clearance Sale on April 25th, 2009, I started thinking about the word "clearance."  I looked up the etymology, and was surprised to see it is from the Latin root, clarus, "clear, bright, gleaming," and ultimately from the Indo-European kele, meaning to call.  This is serendipitous for a mosaic artist, as the essence of the glass comes from light, bright and gleaming.  I have a closet in my studio, that is full of mosaics, squirreled away in the darkness, hibernating, mostly forgotten.  I brought them out, to be in the light, and become reanimated, like the log cabin square in copper and green.  Many of these are from earlier incarnations of my work, and I can see the seeds of my current work within them.  It is a fact of enjoying creating art, that I have more art than I can really store, and so I am clearing out for the new, and sharing some light at a lower than usual price. 

Some have idiosyncrasies like the music box   that doesn't play music, or the black framed trivets that I am phasing out, or the heavy slate wall hanging , that weighs in at almost 5 pounds, or the pink mirror that's just a little too pink for me!  Come and visit at the show, and see all the other cool things for sale--pottery, glass beads, wood turning and more. 

 

Quilts of glass: Log Cabin, Broken Dishes, and maybe Ohio Star

I have been honored to cover my bed with quilts made by my husband's grandmother Mamie Danner, and Wayne's love of quilts piqued my own interest with this art form. In this photo, Mamie is 2nd from the right. She had a quilting room in the basement of her house, and Wayne remembers visiting her there.

Quilt patterns give me a thrill, and being to translate them into glass is very exciting. My ability to sew blocks is impeded by an antagonistic relationship with my sewing machine(which now belongs to my husband for the quilt he made). At first I collaged Christmas cards a few years ago in a log cabin pattern, using magazine papers, and was utterly absorbed in the interplay of color, the many tones and textures present in photographic images. Then, when I moved into my studio, and began to make mosaics, I remembered the log cabin cards, and wondered what I could do with mosaic.

I took a 12x12 inch square of 1/2 inch plywood, and began the process of making a red and black log cabin design. Glass has a range of textures, and I alternated shiny, matte, copper flecked, rough, translucent, and iridized. I am drawn to both visual and tactile texture. I know some mosaicists like their work perfectly flat and smooth and go to great lengths to make it so, but that would drive me crazy.

Another block I was intrigued to find is called "Broken Dishes"--an appropriate name for work done in mosaic! It's a mixture of triangles, in a configuration of lights and darks that adds sparkle as the eye moves over the contrasts. At a holiday show this year, a woman came up to me and said "Ohio Star." At first, I wasn't sure what she meant, and then she said, you must try Ohio Star, and that is next on my list of patterns to try.

Related Posts:

Ann Hermes Miniature Quilts

Beautiful Thrift: Coin Quilt Patterns in Mosaic

Making a Variable Star Mosaic:  Ohio Star