Glazed ceramic tile, fresh out of the kiln at Zwackart studios. Latest installment of work on public art mosaic mural to be installed in Ithaca, NY in Spring of 2012.

Back in January, the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County, New York and The City of Ithaca Public Arts Commission put out a call for design submissions for a mural on a parking garage at Tioga and Seneca Streets, in Ithaca. They were applying for a grant that’s deadline was quickly approaching. Based on the commission’s suggestions of themes, and my own ideas about what is important in life and how I see Ithaca, I pulled some photos together in a collage in Photoshop, created a budget, and submitted it. In March or so, I heard back that I had been chosen as their artist and now we would wait to hear if we received the grant monies. In early August, I heard from City of Ithaca Common Councilor, and member of the public art commission, Edward Rooker saying that “Yes! We had gotten the grant” and could proceed. During the time I had to muse on this project, my heart settled on the idea that instead of using paint I would like to try making this mural out of mosaics. Last summer I purchased an electric kiln. I have gotten more confident in firing it & I feel that I now have the tools at my command to be able to do a ceramic mosaic of my own design, creating many (most?) of the tiles I will use by hand. I am really excited to do this! First, I needed to create a scale drawing. The space I will use measures 6′ x 13′. Next, I made a pilgrimage to Susan Jablon Mosaics in Vestal, NY. Emily Jablon, Susan’s daughter, & a mosaic artist who has done many public art installations, was there and was very generous in her donation of materials. I came back to my studio, absolutely thrilled!, and set the glass tiles from Jablon out on the scale drawing. This helped me wrap my mind around how many square feet (out of 78) I would need to construct by hand from clay. Next, I headed over to my friend and fellow artist Deb Youngling’s house to roll out some slabs from a heavy grog, high fire, white clay body. Here are some examples of the tiles I’ve been making.

The book was hugely engaging and I read it in three days. But when I finished, I felt thoroughly depressed. I sat down and started making notes about the values of the main characters in the story, making thumbnail sketches to represent these values and try to make sense of this work of tragedy. I was thinking about representing a person by showing the layers of experience, the goals, dreams and values, as well as an image of their physical presence; a personal palimpsest. When I met with students on the first day, I asked them to make some simple sketches of their values and I gave a lesson in drawing faces using charcoal. Later we would combine these images using paint on canvas.

This year I won a Crossroads grant to create a tile mosaic and work with Robert Salvato, a skilled wood working artist to create a bench for a public park in Erin, NY. Below are some images from my process of making it.  It is now complete and about to be installed. The Town of Erin has scheduled an unveiling to take place October 29th at 1pm in the new park, behind the fire station. Please come and enjoy the festivities if you are in the area. I am told there will be free hot-dogs.

This bench was made possible in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts’ Decentralization Program, administered locally by The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes.

This project was made possible in part through a Local Capacity Building Grant administered by The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes.

I am so grateful to have gotten to visit New Zealand and stay with Kiwis! One distinct advantage is that not only did our host in the far north, Peter Visser, know the region and what would be interesting to see and do, he knew the people! It was our very good luck that he knew Darge Sumner personally and called her up and asked if it would be OK for us to pay her and her amazing home a visit. She welcomed us with open arms! Here’s a glimpse of her amazing space.

When Darge was in her mid 60s she decided to totally change her living space and, along with her son, developed a new combination of concrete, clay, and recycled wet newspaper that allows for amazing sculptural possibilities and lends itself particularly well to creating mosaics!

As you may have noticed on the calendar, I’ve been teaching a drawing class at the local Middle School after school. I was inspired by the snowy landscape here in rural central New York state. Sometimes the skies are much darker than the earth all covered in snow. The bright white of snowy ground is emitting more light than the sky itself! Perfect to draw in charcoal. I love how charcoal smudges. It can be intensely dark or sublimely faint and subtle. Charcoal is as old as fire, and is a completely non-toxic art material. Our first class together I had students make gradations from the lightest marks they could make to the deepest dark they could muster with many smoothly blended steps in between. They then cut these up and made the value matching tool you see in the pictures. They observed the landscape outside their school and made these sketches.

I am working on it. I took a piece of black linen and smoothed it over a cotton muslin, natural in color, not bleached. I drew a tree in brown pastel and pinned the 2 layers together. Then sewed, changing the path of the branches as needed.

This is just the first few moments in the making of an image to hang over a crib. I thought I’d record the spareness of these few elements before I move on.