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 - Day 4

There is so much to say about being a student in one of Verdiano's workshops. I'm not going to write about it this morning, mainly because I don't have the time to do it justice...

So here's the photos from the end of the day yesterday:

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...

Recent Mosaics

I've been working on several mosaics during the last two months. Sometimes it's more important -- or perhaps simply easier -- to just keep doing the art than to be doing it and documenting the doing of it... however that's not what I should be doing.

I think I'll just post some final product photos tonight since it's getting late (and I still have to optimize the images...). Over the next few days I'll describe the process and show the incremental images.

The finished mosaic from Verdiano's Contemporary Mosaic Workshop
at the Chicago Mosaic School. No title yet...

Mosaic for Jason  - part gift, part barter for dreadlocks.

Mosaic  for Eileen -- given as a gift -- One of two finished
pieces from Sophie's Dalle de Verre workshop
at the Chicago Mosaic School.  

Ab Ovo -- One of two finished pieces from
Sophie's Dalle de Verre workshop
at the Chicago Mosaic School.   

 Ab Ovo -- backlit

Small mosaic & driftwood sculpture.

I'm also working on a 4' x 3' mosaic for the university that is nearly finished.

Day 5 at the Chicago Mosaic School with Verdiano Marzi - Contemporary Expression Mosaic Workshop

It's been over a week since the workshop finished. I spent most of last week getting website developer training and Google analytics training and haven't taken the time to finish writing about the workshop.

No one in the class finished their mosaics during the 5 days. The point wasn't to finish, but rather to participate in a thoughtful process where every step of the mosaic was carefully considered - concept, design, selecting materials/colors, cutting with the hammers & hardies (a new experience for some of us), and tesserae placement.

Around lunch time we did a critique of the mosaics. I generally love critiques, but this one was a bit intimidating - how could it be otherwise with such talent in the room - until it started. It became clear that every piece in the room was a visually compelling, dramatic, well-executed contemporary mosaic. Each artist spoke about their process for 5 minutes, then the group commented on the work, and then Verdiano asked his questions and gave his critique of the artist's work and made suggestions for finishing the pieces and things to think about for future work. Normally I expect to have some of the flaws in my work pointed out... but while all the comments were positive and affirming, it did not feel like things were being Pollyanna-ed. It just felt supportive.

After the critique we were invited to continue to work on the mosaics. I did not cement any additional tessarae to the mosaic, focusing instead on cutting what I estimated I would need to finish the mosaic and cleaning up my area thoroughly. I also shared my website with some of the students who had asked me about it. Sophie and Verdiano were also interested in the work shown on my website.

Here is my mosaic at this point. I'm waiting on some tools (steel hammer and carbide hardie to pair up with my carbide hammer and steel hardie) before I work on it again.

 

Day 4 at the Chicago Mosaic School with Verdiano & Sophie

With Sophie and Verdiano's gentle guiding I made some dramatic changes to the mosaic - changes to the plan I had, the final piece I had envisioned, changes in how I think about mosaic. This mosaic will, I think, be a stronger work, a less rigidly representational piece, a true abstract work (which was my goal). Although it has/will have a very real visual story for me, I think it will be more open for others to create their own stories.

Let me tell you a bit about Sophie and Verdiano...

When I met Sophie a year ago I thought she was a very gracious and warm person. It's was good to learn this week that I was correct. She is one of the most artistically generous people I know... By that I mean that she doesn't hoard her ideas, she doesn't keep secrets from others who want to develop a richer, deeper practice. She doesn't safeguard her preeminence.

And, best of all she's funny and mischievous and devoted to excellence in her art. 

Verdiano. What can I say about Verdiano... He's a strangely wonderful mix of innocence and brilliance. He, like Sophie, shares his whole self, his whole world, with you. Karen said it best Saturday night - "even though we don't share more than a few words, I understand him. I understand him without speaking." [a paraphrase… I cannot recall her exact words – they were much more profound…]

I never saw Verdiano without a smile on his face – well, except for when he was focused on what a student was trying to accomplish. At those times he got this intense, not-quite-a-frown-deep-thought look that signified a total concentration on the task at hand. I don’t know where the man gets his creative energy – he was 100% present for all 5 days.

There are some people who are the universe’s gift to the rest of us… I’m spending time with several of them right now. 

Day 3 with Verdiano and Sophie...

I'll start this post off with the photos... There are three - one of the sketch for the mosaic, one of my table at the end of the day and a close-up of the mosaic.

I'm thinking its title is Facing (maybe Finding, or Hunting) the Mystery... or something like that.

I had the option to go on a tour of mosaics in Chicago, but I was on a roll with cutting tesserae, so I stayed behind and cut a lot of stone. I had enough glass cut so I just focused on the marble. You get in a rhythm and it works well - the hammer strikes the stone perfectly and the cut happens where you want it - then you get cocky and you either get your thumb with the hammer (and the hammer is sharp) or you hit the hardie with the hammer (*shame*) or your cuts go all wonky and you cannot get the pieces you want no matter what. So the moral of the story is:

STAY HUMBLE and your cuts will satisfy you (and Verdiano too!)...

Verdiano and Sophie really seem to like my mosaic at this point. I feel pretty good about the mosaic and pretty damn good about them liking it. Karen said "Wow." too. It's great to learn from people who show you where you're going good and where you could change things up and get better results. I think we'll be doing a critique on Sunday and that will be great too. I love critiques - love talking about everyone's work, together, looking for the strengths in a piece and offering suggestions for making the next work even stronger.

It's great to be working on a piece that is so different. I love the Blenko glass. So I'll be getting some of that when I get the down-payment on the next mosaic (a week from today). I've learned about some great new tools and some of them will be going home with me and others will come later (we're pulling together a list of people interested in the tools from overseas [France? Italy?] so that we can buy en masse and save). And I'm definitely getting a bunch of marble.

Verdiano's Modern Expression Mosaic Class

I'm in Chicago, at the Chicago Mosaic School, studying with Verdiano Marzi. It's day 2 of a 5 day class. We're working with stone and glass. I've never worked with stone before...

I'm using a tight-grained, sandstone-colored marble, and a second, similar colored marble that has tiny geodes or crystals in it. I'm also using some gray/black marble - one with white veins and one without.

Along with the marble I'm using some smalti and some Blenko Dalle de Verre glass.

During the first day Verdiano (who doesn't speak English) described the methods for working with the various materials to create contemporary mosaics. Verdiano lives in Paris and teaches mosaic at the Louvre. He speaks to us with the aid of mosaic artist (and professional orchestral and chamber music violinist) Sophie Drouin who translates for us.

After Verdiano spoke to us, we grabbed our hammers, selected marble and glass, and learned to cut tesserae. It took me most of the remainder of the day to get to the point where I was able to cut tesserae that suited me. Verdiano says I make good tesserae... so I'm happy.

I'm staying with Eileen, and when I got back to her apartment last night I was totally empty of inspiration for the design I wanted to create. I selected the first art book I saw on her bookcase - The Color of Light, by Marko Ivan Rupnik. I saw that the first pages of the book was images of beautiful abstract paintings. I wanted to do an abstract work. I've not done an abstract mosaic and the whole point of taking a class from someone like Verdiano is to really push oneself.

I only looked at a bit of the book before deciding to take a walk on the beach. Eileen lives a couple-three blocks from Lake Michigan and there's a great beach at the end of her street. As I walked in the rapidly cooling evening air, I found and collected a couple handfuls each of some lake-smoothed brown (chert?) and black (coal) stones. When I came back to Eileen's and went back to looking at the book I discovered that the second half of the book was full of images of the mosaic that Rupnik did in the Redemptoris Mater Chapel. The chilly walk on the beach and all the wonderful images in the book opened up something for me and I sat down and made around 25 sketches for the abstract mosaic. Two of them were really strong. One was exceptional.

Today we started on our mosaics.
Here is mine around noon today.  

And here it is at 6:30 as I finished up for the day. You can see the tesserae and the andamento.