Pablo Picasso Month - Day 27

This one is for Verdiano.

"Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things."

~ Pablo Picasso

I am looking forward to the next workshop – I want to see where the next stepping stones take me.

---

Why Pablo Picasso 

Modern Expression 2 Workshop with Verdiano Marzi

I'm taking the 6-day Modern Expression II workshop at the Chicago Mosaic School with Verdiano Marzi. We're three days into it and it's been absolutely amazing. Verdiano is a powerful teacher. Matteo Randi is translating for Verdiano this time. Last year I took the Modern Expression I workshop and it transformed my practice... I feel like this workshop is going to result in an even greater understanding of mosaic and what I can do as an artist.

Just wanted to post a few photos of yesterday's and today's mosaic work. I'm working in petrified wood, travertine (a type of limestone), marble and glass, along with some assorted undefined rocks that I've collected here and there.

At the end of the day yesterday:

Today's progress:

Verdiano likes all that I've done so far, except for one small area. He said we'd talk about it tomorrow...

Work in progress

I've been working in the studio quite a bit these past days. Not all of the work has been creating art - some of it has been making the space work better for me.

I finished a mosaic ATC (artist trading card) Sunday night. Tonight I finished the mosaic for Jason (my dreadlock artist) except for the grouting.

Here are some images of Jason's mosaic which I will be grouting tomorrow night:

 A photo from Saturday, or maybe Sunday - I'm trying to determine the best size to make the final piece... I wasn't sure when I started how big I wanted to make it, so I did not trim the wedi board until I had enough of the mosaic done to make that decision. The black, square tiles are not glued down here. They are just placed to make it easy to see how it would look at a given size.

How it looked at 9pm tonight.

 From this angle you can see the face, the imagining stars, the letters/words, and my signature.

 I wanted to be able to add the eye and mouth details to the face but I wanted the face to be made up of as few pieces of glass as possible so as to fit with how I did the hair/dreads. However when I tried to cut the face glass so as to have the mouth and the eye be part of a traditional grout line I got a Heath Ledger Joker effect that I thought did not fit the piece (it actually was sort of creepy). So I tossed the first pieces and cut new ones. I put my Dremel in the mini-drill press, and using the glass drill bit, I cut into the face glass to make free-form grout lines in the glass. I am really happy with this so far... we'll see how it looks after it's grouted...

 Before we can be free we must first imagine ourselves free... don't know if that's quoting someone or not. I hear/read so much that I lose track of what I've come up with and what I've simply absorbed along the way...

Something I definitely absorbed - Finally a way to sign my work... following a method that I saw Matteo Randi doing at the Chicago Mosaic School earlier this month... using narrow copper strips, bent into letters and numbers. I wanted to sign and date the pieces in a way that shows when someone is looking at the work (as opposed to signing the back of the piece). I like the way this is working in this mosaic and I'm looking forward to using this method with future mosaics.

Matteo Randi's Suggested Mosaic Reference Books

Matteo Randi was in Verdiano's Contemporary Mosaic workshop with us. He had never studied with Verdiano, beginning his studies in Ravenna years after Verdiano left for Paris - I think.

Matteo's work is breathtaking, full of life and vision, both subtle and dramatic and totally captivating. And he is terribly nice and very passionate about his work and mosaic art. He teaches at the Chicago Mosaic School and sometime I plan to take one of his classes.

He teaches ancient Roman mosaic techniques and other workshops. I asked him if he could recommend a bibliography for me so that I could learn more about the historical context for mosaic (as preparation, in part, for my trip to Italy in 2012).

He generously took me to his work room at the school and we went through his books to come up with a list for me.

These first three were his suggested first purchases. I've ordered #2 and #3. 

Mosaic: Materials, Techniques, and History
Isotta Fiorentini Roncuzzi & Elisabetta Fiorentini

Glossario Tecnico-Storico del Mosaico / Technical-Historical Glossary of Mosaic Art
Manuela Farneti

Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World
Katherine M. D. Dunbabin

Some of the following are in Italian, some in both Italian and English, and some in English...

Il mosaico per immagini
Marco De Luca ; testo di Bruno Bandini ; premessa di Henry Lavagne ; introduzione di Marcello Landi.
Essegi

Italian Mosaics: 300-1300
Joachim Peoschke

Mosaics of Roman Africa: Floor Mosaics from Tunisia
Michele Blanchard-Lemee (Author), Mongi Ennaifer (Author), Hedi Slim (Author), Latifa Slim (Author), Gilles Mermet (Photographer), Kenneth D. Whitehead (Translator)

Greek Art - Byzantine Mosaics
Nano Chatzidakis

Mosaici d'Artisti Contemporanei
G.Bovini, G.C.Argan, P.Portoghesi,P.Fischer, 1986
In Italian, but vaulable because it shows the cartoons and the finished mosaics.

When I mentioned an interest in how fabric and clothing is represented in mosaics, Matteo went back into his library and pulled out a book on the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna - a Mirabilia Italiae Guide book...

La Basilica di San Vitale a Ravenna
Gianfranco Malafarina, editor,
published by Franco Cosimo Panini

I haven't found a place to buy this one, so I might have to find another book that has good photos of the mosaic in the Basilica di San Vitale a Ravenna.