Starting another mosaic

Tonight I began working on the first of the Ships mosaics. This one is of a 17th century sailing ship in rough waters, with antique maps on each side.

The mosaic will be 37.75" x 44.5". The odd size is so that the finished piece will fit a specific spot where the person commissioning this piece will hang it. This panel will be one of four that make up the finished work.

This image shows the beginning glass work. You can see the mermaid figurehead as well as some of the other glass laid in. The large gray item just left of center is a large pastry/cake decorator bag that I've filled with thinset mortar (since this moasic will be displayed outdoors it needs to be put together with thinset rather than Weldbond, which is not totally weatherproof). I cut the end of the bag to dispense a 1/8" stream and use this to apply the thinset to the fiberboard. This helps conserve thinset and it makes far less mess than trying to use some sort of applicator to spread a small amount of thinset to the back of each tessarae. It's also much, much faster.

Catching up on the mosaic progress

Thought I'd take a few minutes while I eat my lunch to get this blog caught up. I've finished the glass work on MacKenzie in the Garden with Bees. I also made a grout test - a 10" x 20" mosaic using tiles that represent the color range in this piece. Tonight it will have been sitting log enough for the adhesive to be dry. I will tape off parts of it and do grout color test strips. I think I will want to test blue-gray, light gray, medium gray and black.


On previous mosaics I've often skipped the grout test, but I've devoted enough time, energy and resources into this one I thought I would do it. I'm really bad about just doing things without this kind of prep. Most of the time it works out because I am good at visualizing. Sometimes I wonder if a test of this sort would have made a good piece even better. So with that in mind I'm taking the time (and committing the resources - 161 tiles) to do one.

When I was doing a lot of B&W photography I actually learned that I really liked making test strips for exposure settings. I would cut strips of glossy, matte and pearl finished papers; line them up in the print easel, and do a series of test exposures. It became part of my darkroom ritual - shoot a roll of film, process it; expose a contact sheet, process it, dry it; take it out into normal lighting and select which images to print; cut test strips, expose them, process them, dry them; take them out into normal lighting and finally decide which images and which papers and which exposures; expose images, process them, dry them, take them out into normal lighting and see how well I chose. If not so good, repeat process with other choices. If good, frame photograph (or whatever I was doing with it) and move on.

Mosaic Progress - Getting Close

Here is the most recent image of MacKenzie in the Garden with Bees. I will likely finish the glass work between now and Sunday. I have a bit of work to do on the edges, particularly the left edge, that doesn't show in this photograph. It needs to be trimmed about 1/4" so that it will fit in a 24" X 48" frame. I have to pull up about 25 tiles, shave off the 1/4", and replace the tiles, some of which will need trimmed themselves.

Next time I'm going to cut the substrate and build the frame before I start with the glass work. I won't place the substrate in the frame until after the grouting so that I don't have to worry about getting grout where it should not be - I just want to make sure I don't have framing issues like this one.

Mosaic Progress - Part 10

I discovered this weekend that the color I wanted to use for the remainder of the sky is the one color I missed when I made the huge glass tile order last month.

Very frustrating.

So today I went online and ordered the blue-gray tiles, and some pure black mini-tiles for another project and the class I am teaching in March & April. I also ordered 6 pairs of tile nippers for the class. I already have 4 students and I think I might end up with a few more.

After my realization that I only had 25 tiles of the sky color, I decided to work on finishing up all the flowers and plants in the mosaic and the six remaining bees while I wait for the order to arrive. After about six hours of work this weekend I have five bees, the outer ring of petals for one of the giant sunflowers, the blossoms on the smaller Mexican sunflowers and a bit of greenery left on the plants left to do. I'll keep working on them until the tile order comes in. Once they are done, and the sky tiles cut to fit around them, the rest of this mosaic will go very quickly.

I am starting to get excited about completing this one. I am looking forward to grouting it. Adding the grout always pulls it all together for me. I usually love it while I am working on it, but become totally enthralled when the grout goes on. I think I am going to use a pewter gray grout. I think a black or slate gray would be too dark for this mosaic. It has a considerable expanse of sky that needs to fade into the background. Using a grout that is remarkably different than the blue-gray sky tiles will make the sky show up too much and pull the viewer's attention to it rather than the foreground elements.

I've started thinking about the frame. I think I will make a fairly deep box frame (my name for it - the actual frame type probably has a different official name) for this mosaic. I will drill the plywood back board and set the hanging hardware in from the inside before mounting the mosaic in the frame so that there is plenty of strength in the hanging system. This will be a heavy piece.

Mosaic Progress - None

I did not work on the mosaic last night - took a night off to do some research. I am doing a presentation next month for the Knowledge Acknowledged series at work. The library has four presentations scheduled for this spring. The first one was by Robin Wangberg, a professor of physics that runs Ironman Triathlons. The next is by Eric Heukeshoven, a music instructor here who plays the Winona steam calliope in the Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans every year. I do the next presentation after that and Abelisto, Chris Kendall and Gary LeMasters are finishing the series with a presentation on sustainable beekeeping.

Here's the promo for my presentation:
Monta May- accomplished artist, will share her passion for creating art that is bound up in the mystery of antiquity, the ancient artifacts, techniques, motifs, and imagery that allow us brief glimpses into the lives of our common ancestral pasts. Monta’s work reflects a fascination with things from the past. March 24, 2:00-3:00 p.m.

Now I have to decide what I am going to talk about.

I am fascinated by the ancient, the mysteries that surround us that we rarely acknowledge. This fascination informs my art practice, becoming part of the context I work within.

When I did my MFA I wrote quite a bit about inspiration and historic examples of concurrent inspiration. I realized then that most of the art I do is in media that use centuries old techniques. Fiber work, encaustic painting, and now mosaic, all have roots that are very old, very deep.

Mosaic Workshop

March 11, 18, 25 & April 1
Mosaic Art: Creating Glass Tile Mosaics
Wednesdays • 5:30pm - 7:30pm

Winona Arts Center
228E 5th St
Winona MN 55987
507-453-9959

Participants will learn how to create mosaics using vitreous glass tiles. They will also learn a bit of miasic history. Emphasis will be given to understanding and mastering techniques so that participants will be able to create mosaics on their own after taking this workshop. Participants will have the iption of signing up for either a 1 mosaic option (materials for a 1 sp.ft. mosaic to be created in the workshop) or a 3 mosiac option (materials for a 1 sp.ft. mosaic to be created in the workshop, plus materials to create 2 aditional mosiacs for further exploration). In addition, participants may purchase the tile nippers used in the workshop.

Tuition: $60
Materials: $25 for 1 mosaic, $55 for 3 mosaics
Tools: $20 for tile nippers (some will be available for use in the workshop)

Registration deadline: class may be canceled if less than 4 people register by March 1.

Instructor: Monta Gael May, MFA, montamay@gmail.com

This is the information for the mosaic workshop I am leading. If you are interested in registering for the workshop please contact the Winona Arts Center or email me.

Mosaic Progress - Part 9

Tonight's work was cut short by an hour or so. My right thumb met the corner of a particularly sharp cut tile. I did not even know it was cut until the blood spurted.

I did get some work done first.

I should be able to finish the glass work this week. After that it will be grouting and framing. I think I'll make a shallow shadowbox frame this one.

Mosaic Progress - Part 8

I spent most of the weekend cleaning and organizing the house. I did manage to get some more work on the mosaic done. I will need to get some more cutting wheels for my Leponitt tile nipper soon. I think they are beginning to get dull - it was getting hard to make accurate cuts, harder to cut the tiles straight. I rotated the blades this morning and they seemed to cut better this evening when I worked on the mosaic.

Mosaic Progress - Part 7

This photo shows my progress as of Wednesday night. I did not work on the mosaic last night because I went to the Winona Fine Arts Commission open forum. Interesting event.

Anyway, when I looked at the photos from Wednesday night I noticed a mistake that I am going to have to fix. It's in the lower right corner of the mosaic.

Mosaic Progress - Part 6

The background and flowers are really starting to take shape. The mosaic is laying flat on a table as I work on it. Soon I have to decide if I want to finish the left side of the mosaic, filling in the sky all the way to the top, or rotate it 180 degrees and work on the flowers and grass at the bottom right side before finishing the sky.

Did not get quite as much work done on the mosaic over the weekend as I would have preferred - the house was scary messy and a major drain on any creative energies one might have. So Abelisto and I spent significant time over the weekend putting it in order. Now everything but the kitchen and one studio room is okay, not perfect, but okay.

And the laundry got done, which was another absolutely necessary task. I'm still not sure the washer is working correctly, but I am in denial about it after the $600.00 bill for the furnace...

Mosaic Progress - Part 5

It's almost midnight. I had no idea I had worked so long tonight. I was listening to an audio book and laying in tiles and time slipped away from me.

Mosaic Progress - Part 4

Here is MacKenzie in the Garden with Bees as of last night.

 

 

It's always interesting to see which areas of a mosaic I feel drawn to work on. If I were doing a mosaic in opus regulatum I would pick a corner and work row-by-row; if opus vermiculum I would select an element in the image and work it first and then move outward; but this one is sort of opus palladium - crazy path - and I can jump around in it a bit.

Identity As A Construct

The process of self-discovery is fluid, elusive and capricious. We find and lose ourselves, moment-to-moment, like the fleeting recognizable shapes seen in the clouds. The process of discovering our godhood is likewise fluid, elusive and capricious. We find and lose our divinity constantly. This is our mystery.

It seems to me that identity is a made thing, like art, like music, like a spinach soufflé. It’s part performance, done for an audience, often involving improvisation – even plagiarism – and part self-discovery, a continual self-re-creation.

I cannot speak to how everyone does it, but I pick and choose between all the possible choices I can imagine and sculpt an identity for myself. Actually I have several identities – the work identity, the home identity, the mom identity, the lover/partner identity, the artist identity. These days all my identities are more similar to each other than they have ever been in my life. I think I am achieving balance.

Finally.

Postmodern society allows for each of us to keep a closet full of identities which we pull out and try on, wearing when and as we see fit. It seems to me that this is both a personal choice and a tendency based on cultural norms. Sociologist Victoria Alexander, in Sociology of the Arts, seems to agree, stating “…because people are more geographically mobile and can choose among a wide variety of consumer items, their identities have become fragmented and based on their consuming choices and lifestyles.” Did my grandmother have more than one identity? Perhaps she did, living with an unstable man, balancing a work life and home life, walking carefully on whatever eggshells the moment laid before her. I know that when I was living with a violent and unstable person, I had very compartmentalized identities. It was a very stressful way to live, trying to keep the segments of my world from intersecting - I must have been fairly successful, I survived. Others did not, or at least did not with any level of stability or sanity. I feel pretty good.

Perhaps the need for multiple identities – or multifaceted identities – comes from having large numbers of people to interact with. Could it be that we need to be one person with that group, another person in this situation, and still another when we’re all alone?

In The Power of Feminist Art, editors Norma Broud and Mary Garrard, spent some time discussing identity with Judy Chicago. Chicago stated “Identity is multiple… when I started looking at Jewish experience people would say ‘Oh, you’ve stopped being a feminist?’ It’s because they had a very narrow concept of identity… one can be both a woman and a person of color, an American and of African descent, as well as a person of a particular class.”

One’s identity is larger than singular.

My identity is indeed multiple. I self-identify as a member of a number of overlapping groups. In regards to ethnicity I see myself as predominantly western European (Irish, Scottish, and my most recent heritage discovery - Hungarian); in regards to sexual orientation, bisexual; class – this one is a bit fluid – I consider myself upper-middle class because I feel I am very fortunate in life, but I’m not sure if that’s how I’d be placed based on income.

I place myself as an artist, a mother, a partnered individual, and a reluctant and somewhat anarchistic American. I have a work identity that oozes capability and responsibility, but I’d really like to chuck it all and be more bohemian (perhaps even *gasp* hedonistic), taking up an eclectic gypsy persona as my primary identity.

The clothes would be so much more fun.

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Interstices - Part 4

This is a bit closer photograph of Communion Circle: 1-10.

Communion Circle: 1-1
Plaster sculptures, each piece measures
approximately 24" x 24" at the base,
heights vary from 64" to 76"

I like tension in my artwork. I like to find ways to express two or more opposing ideas in a single work.

This piece is about community. As I planned the piece I had two ideas about community. Community is always the same. Community is always changing.

Community is always the same represents the idea that community essentially exists anytime there is one being involved with another. Thinking in terms of human community, it seems to me that community is our foundation; it is the bedrock of our existence. That is the part that never changes. We are always in community.

Community is always changing refers to the fact that individuals change community, and community changes individuals. By this I do not mean simply the transitory nature of human interaction, not just that we are nomadic in nature (nomadic in regards to community - even if we do not move our persons, we move our loyalties, our interests, our passions and that brings us into community with new groups) but also that each individual changes the dynamics of a community, and the experience of community changes the individual.

Each piece in Communion Circle: 1-10 represents a being, an entity, in some stage of its life. Each being has root-like tendrils at the bottom of wide/thick bases. Each being then tapers up to a narrow point which twists, bends or droops in a variety of shapes.

The root/tendrils base is meant to suggest a tree in the minds of the viewer - what is more stable than a tree. It lives its life in one place and, barring human intervention, lives a long time, feeding the community upon its demise, as it slowly decays. This represents the unchanging essence of community.

The upper sections of the beings are meant to suggest surreal bird heads (some of them strongly resemble birds). What is more temporal than a bird, more transitory? This embodies the ever-changing aspect of community.

The sculptures themselves were constructed in phases. I started with a block of wood, 1" x 7" x 7", drilled a 5/8" hole in the center of it, and inserted a 60" fiberglass rod. I then twisted newspaper into the root-like shapes and taped it to the board. Once I had enough roots taped down, I began filling out the shape with crunched up balls and folded up slabs of newspaper, taping them to each other as they wound around the fiberglass rod in the center, tapering to a narrow column at the top of the rods. I then twisted more newspaper into the various bird-head shapes and affixed them to the tops of the sculptures with more masking tape.

Once I had the general shape I wanted I covered the sculpture with a couple layers of plaster cloth (the same stuff they used to cast broken bones with). With this plaster cloth I refined the shape, adding details to make the suggestion of tree trunks and bird heads stronger.

After the plaster cloth dried and set up I mixed up a slurry of plaster and water which I then brushed on the sculpture in a thin layer. After the layer dried fully I added another layer, and another. Each sculpture has around twenty layers. After the plaster work was done, each piece was given two layers of a neutral white paint.

I decided on white because I did not want color to interfere with either "seeing" the shapes, or seeing the pieces as a cohesive whole.

That said, I am working with a local foundry on getting these cast in soft steel or iron. I think they would make a great outdoor sculpture - it would rust to a lovely brown color.

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