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Let's Toast
28"h x 15"w x 10"d
glass & handmade tile
Awarded Best 3D Mosaic Arts International 2007
Society of American Mosaic Artists
I don’t even remember what inspired my desire to create a classic toaster in mosaic, though I loved the idea of ordinary mirror glass suggesting shiny chrome. I embraced the challenge of using conventional mosaic materials to represent an ordinary household object, one whose functionality usually outshadows its form. Here’s a toast to toast!
Let's Toast
28"h x 15"w x 10"d
glass & handmade tile
Awarded Best 3D Mosaic Arts International 2007
Society of American Mosaic Artists
I don’t even remember what inspired my desire to create a classic toaster in mosaic, though I loved the idea of ordinary mirror glass suggesting shiny chrome. I embraced the challenge of using conventional mosaic materials to represent an ordinary household object, one whose functionality usually outshadows its form. Here’s a toast to toast!
Hot Day
12"h x 23"w x 14"d
glass and wood
This piece literally came to me in a dream, one hot July night. The dream didn’t convey the scale, but after experimenting a bit, this seemed about right. The form felt archetypal as I was working on it – arches and alcoves, lines curved and straight. While being primarily monochromatic, vitreous richness give it vivid character and flavor. The piece has a multi-sensory quality – visual, tactile, and olfactory (!) which is intended to be familiar and inviting.
Let them Eat Cake
12" diameter x 9.5" high
hand made ceramic
Anyone who's ever mixed up a container of mortar knows the similarity to various things edible. I often suggest to mosaic students to aim for textures like peanut butter, toothpaste, or frosting, everyday familiars. After a spell of baking and decorating quite a few family birthday cakes and even a wedding cake, I couldn't resist taking the cement - frosting connection a step further. My art often focuses on the commonplace or overlooked, seeing it in a new light. The juxtaposition of a cake's soft squishiness with the unyielding hardness of ceramic tile gives one food for thought.
Humpty Dumpty
50"h x 38"w x 36"d
ceramic and glass
This piece captures a moment that is immediately recognizable, without explanation to most of the English-speaking world. There are many theories of the origin of the Humpty Dumpty rhyme, and various versions of its historic significance, but it is known to date back at least some 300-400 years. Clearly there is something compelling about this character who is frequently represented as an egg. I was especially delighted by the round, smoothness of the egg contrasting with the angular geometric shapes of the wall.
Humpty Dumpty
50"h x 38"w x 36"d
ceramic and glass
This piece captures a moment that is immediately recognizable, without explanation to most of the English-speaking world. There are many theories of the origin of the Humpty Dumpty rhyme, and various versions of its historic significance, but it is known to date back at least some 300-400 years. Clearly there is something compelling about this character who is frequently represented as an egg. I was especially delighted by the round, smoothness of the egg contrasting with the angular geometric shapes of the wall.
Tea Time
17"w x 17"h x 10"d
hand made ceramic, rope, metal
This piece is part of my mosaic food series. All the pieces share the thread of being enlarged-scale ordinary, everyday objects. The materials used are chosen or created to represent the actual texture, form, and essence of the original object in a “realistic” yet enlarged way. The distortion of scale and juxtaposition of ordinariness in fine art are intentionally light-hearted. This recognizable brand of tea, with ties to Britain and Canada, has become something of an American classic.
Acorn
15" diameter x 20" long
hand made ceramic
An actual acorn in the right of the photo indicates scale.
Fiddlewood
32"h x 24"w
ceramic and glass
Watercolour Translation
The musical world informs my mosaic work as an integral part of its creation. Traditional music styles often overlap and blend, morphing and evolving. Taking genre cross-pollination a step further was inevitable, exploring where multiple arts intersect. Sound waves meet solid, fluid meets firm. Through extensive study, the Watercolour Translation technique was born. The process defines the outcome while intentional abstraction leaves space for broad interpretation. Recycled and reused materials, apropos of our time, (including no longer playable fiddles) provide texture and colour. The usually dark inner sanctum twinkles new light among ancient symbols.
Lacuna
32"h x 24"w
ceramic and glass
Watercolour Translation
Grey Matters
22"h x 17"w
ceramic and glass
Watercolour Translation
Garden Tartan
12" x12"
Italian glass smalti
While creating Garden Tartan, I wanted to push my own periphery to foreign places, (Rome, for instance) based in antiquity but something new. A 2D abstract piece in smalti was a complete departure for me. My work is usually 3D and representational, rarely abstract, and seldom in smalti. Calling it a tapestry would be cliché, but there is a certain ‘textility’ to the piece.
Celtic Knot
24" x 24"
stone
Leaf
24" x 24"
stone