Ship Mosaic Progress

The ship mosaic is large enough that it is getting harder to photograph.

I've finished the sails on the ship, worked on the water a bit more and started the map.

This photo shows the map area in the lower right corner the best. If you click on the photo and look at the larger image you can see how I'm working on the rivers and the coastline. The rivers are glass rods cut into short sections (an idea from a discussion with Eric Schandelmeier).

The photo below shows the sails better.You can see where I pulled off the first glass rods that I was using for the ship's rigging. The rods were too close to the brown color of the glass for the wooden parts of the ships - they blended in too much. I ordered an assortment of rods from Delphi glass, but none of them really say "ropes" to me either. There are a couple colors that come close, but I'm not certain I want to use them. I'm going to Chicago this weekend for a smalti workshop at the Chicago Mosaic School. Maybe I'll try to find a glass store in Chicago and look for rods that are a color that will look like ropes. If I don't find a store in Chicago, I'm sure I'll be back in Saint Paul soon and I know of a store there to get the rods.

At this point I have 24 hours of work in this mosaic. I am really noticing a time savings by using the pastry bag for applying the thinset. Much, much faster than dabbing it on with a stick.

Ship Mosaic Progress

Don't have time to write much, but I wanted to post an image of the work on the mosaic from the last couple nights. I think I want to replace the glass rods (representing the ropes) with a slightly different color glass rod. These are too close to the color of the glass for the ship itself - maybe a more yellowish-gray-brown... if there is such a color.

 

Ship Mosaic Process

The ship mosaic is going well. Abelisto & I were out of town for a few days so I did not get much done on it since my last post. And now the mosaic workshop will be taking up two evenings each week for the next three weeks (that's okay since teaching workshops gives me money for mosaic supplies...).

We were in the Twin Cities for three days over the weekend. Abelisto was taking a beekeeper's class at the UofM. I explored Saint Paul, mostly the art supply establishments (bought lots of glass, some beads, and some great paper for making books - attended a workshop last week on making hand-bound books, more later).

Here's the most recent images of the mosaic:

The color is a bit off in these photos, but the design and andamento (the flow of the tessarae - tiles - in the mosaic) shows up fairly well. I particularly like the way the ship's wake is working out. The rest of the sea will be rolling, undulating waves, but I wanted an exaggerated image of the ship cutting through the waves - therefore, the  spirals of water.

You can see the pastry bag I'm using to apply the thinset. So far it's been an excellent method to use thinset. By using the pastry bag I'm not trying to dab a tiny bit of thinset to each tile with a stick, I don't have to keep opening and closing a bucket of pre-mixed thinset, or to keep mixing small amounts of it, trying to use it up before it dries out. The pastry bag makes controlling the amount of thinset used a simple matter, and the same thinset has been in the bag since the beginning of this project last week - without drying out. All I do when I am done for the day is squeeze out the last 1/4 to 1/2 inch of thinset from the tip of the bag, pressing the plastic tip very flat. It seals out the air enough to keep the thinset fresh and ready to go.

The Ship Mosaic

Tonight's work on the ship mosaic:

I think I'm going to like the way the rolling waves are going to come out. It was hard to stop tonight. I'd like to have a full day to work on it (or a week...).

It's really different working with thinset instead of Weldbond glue. The thinset adheres much tighter (nearly impossible to pull off misplaced tiles without breaking them) and it dries much faster, which taken together means I have to be dead-on certain about how the tesserae are cut and where they are going.

Drew first blood tonight when I was cutting strips of stained glass for the water (you can see some of them at the right side of the photo). The glass that got me was so shapr that I did not even feel it, I just noticed, all of a sudden, that there was blood all over the place. It's not a cut, just a puncture, but man, did it bleed. Tomorrow it will likely be pretty damn sore...

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.

Swarm

Abelisto's bees swarmed today. It was amazing. At first I was sad that we did not "catch" them. But then I decided that it was cool that we contributed to the wild bee population!

Abelisto has photos of the swarm in a neighbor's tree.

Why I don't post images anywhere but here and my website

Here's a good reminder to READ the agreements you authorize over the internet - even if they are 20 pages long... and why I don't load my images on Facebook or MySpace or any social network or gallery site.

I hope Blogger hasn't changed their agreement since I last read it. I guess I'd better check.

www.austinkleon.com/

FASEM Show

FASEM is the Fine Artists of Southeast Minnesota. There's going to be a show in June & July here in Winona and one of my mosaics are going to be in it - Mackenzie in the Garden with Bees.

Single-payer Health Care Plan

I have to admit that I was behaving irresponsibly in regard to the Single-payer Health Care Plan. I was relying on the fact that people I trusted politically said it was a good thing and wanted it, so I should think it was a good thing and I should want it. I just did not want to do the background research about it.

Well this youtube movie gave me enough information that I will go ahead and research it a bit. If the claims in this slideshow are correct, I wholeheartedly want single-payer health care.



So how do we convince our government that we NEED this health care policy? How can we make our voices heard over and above the insurance companies? I think I need to be writing some letters.

Transportation

Today I rode my bicycle to work for the first time this year.

I'd wanted to start doing that when school let out and Abelisto would not need to be hauling books and papers back and forth. But between the weather and other things that were going on, it did not happen until today. I almost did not do it today. I was running later than I like for biking. I like to go early enough that the traffic is less (and early enough to take a shower before sitting down to work).

I am always amazed as I start biking each year, at the intimacy with your surroundings that bicycling brings to you. You're intimately aware of the wind - it's either helping you or holding you back (and it always seems to be blowing down the hill as I ride up to the university). You're intimately aware of the surfaces around you, the textures and colors. You're especially aware of the gravel and sand since those things can cause you problems.

You notice sound and smells - cars driving up behind you, kids yelling and laughing and crying, sirens wailing, some nearby construction, newly mown grass, vehicle exhaust, the city swimming pool, french fries and grilled burgers at the local pub.

You are intimately aware of your vehicle - you notice the smoothness of the shifting (or the roughness, perhaps), the feel of the brakes engaging, the sound the chain makes running over the gears and derailers, that strangely compelling tick-tick-tick that multi-gear bikes sometimes make. You actually notice the energy drag that improperly inflated tires create. You notice the placement and comfort level of the handlebars and seat. You notice the relationship between sprocket size and ease of pedaling and speed and distance covered with each rotation of the pedal crank.

You become intimately aware of your own body - burning muscles, tight breathing, sweat trickling down between your shoulder blades, the tenderness where your posterior meets the seat, the trembling muscles in your thighs and calves, the giddy disconnect of exercise endorphins, the feeling that you are powerful and sleek (even when you're not).

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A few days ago I told Abelisto I'd like to live in a car-free town.

Winona is small enough that you can get around on a bike or walk - at least most of the year (it's a bit rough in the winter when you've got either lots of snow or a bitterly cold wind chill or both). Unless you need to go up on the bluffs it's fairly flat riding/walking, something easily done even if you're out of shape.

If the neighborhoods had more of a mix of housing and commerce you could actually live without a car at all. Some of my kids have done so, one is doing it now.

We have bike bags on our bikes. Between Abelisto and I, we can get probably 6 or 8 bags of groceries on our bikes. Someday I want to get/build/rig up a bike trailer so that I could do more of my intown shopping on bicycle.

Art vs. Cooking

I should not try to do too many other things at the same time I am working on art.

Today I boiled the rice dry (and I was standing only 15 or so feet from the stove) while drawing the cartoon for the next big mosaic. Fortunately although there was 1/2 an inch of scorched short grain brown rice at the bottom of the pan, I was able to save a few cups of the rice and the scorchy flavor it ended up with actually complemented the smoky, spicy chipotle seasoning in the black beans and tomatoes that I was serving with the rice. So we ate it anyway - I hate waste.

The cartoon is for a mosaic of an early-eighteenth century galleon (hoisting a pirates colors), sailing through a rolling, undulating sea - one of a four-panel commission I am working on.

The mosaic will be 44" wide and 37" tall, and must be that size to fit in the space it has been commissioned for. Unfortunately those dimensions don't match the dimensions of the ship, which is taller than it is wide, of course. So I am thinking of adding a 17th century map to the left and right edges of the piece, having the coastal water colors fade gradually into the sea and sky colors I am using in the rest of the piece.

Might totally change my mind, though. I'll have to sketch it out in a couple full-sized cartoons to see what I think.

Here's the sketch I did today. It only shows the center part of the cartoon. The ship is a bit foreshortened because of the angle the photo was shot at. It's a bit hard to see since it is on brown craft paper...

Bees - NY Times Blog

Great post on bees and the world we live in - even though it's a bumblebee they've got pictured, not a honeybee.

I'm waiting to see what Abelisto thinks about it (the article, not the misidentified pollinator in the photo).

Opinion
Olivia Judson: Guest Column: Let’s Hear It for the Bees
Published: April 28, 2009
You can set your watch by the openings and closings of certain flowers, but for real circadian synchronicity, it's the bees.

Mackenzie in the Garden with Bees

Here is the finished Mackenzie in the Garden with Bees as he was at the Art Tour.


And Mac back at home. I've entered this piece in the Southeast Minnesota Fine Arts show.

Article in the Winona Daily News

I was interviewed Monday night by a local reporter.

The story ran today. It's not bad at all, although she misquoted me slightly about survival and making art.

What I actually said was "once all our energies are not taken up with survival concerns, humans tend to make art and decorate their surroundings."

She also underplayed the mosaic part of my practice. I think it was that the encaustic made better demonstration photos and had a bit more mystery to it than chipping up glass and gluing it down.

She also did not mention that I am on the board at the Winona Arts Center - oh well, I tried to get it in the story...

Art Department Blog

The Art & Design department where I work has a new blog that features student assignments/projects/work.

Helen Levitt, Photographer, 1913-2009

Interesting piece.

I especially appreciate the observation that we tend to suppose a genius to creating art, a master status for an artist. There isn't, you know... neither genius or master. You just get out there and do it. If anything sets an artist apart from others it is a trained eye (ear) and an obsession. Like anything else, if it is important enough, you do it over and over and over - looking for ways to do it better. Some of us read every book and article on art like ours. Some of us make and make and make, honing our skills, practicing our praxis. Some of us study the HIStory of the art we do. Some of us strike up conversations with every other artist we encounter, picking their brains for ideas and inspiration. Some of us experiment and push boundaries - our own boundaries, our audience's boundaries, and the boundaries of the media we work in.

Some of us actually do get better. Some of us become masterful in skill and expert of eye. Not Masters, but masterly.

It's not as special as you might think.

Anyone can do it, with enough passion, enough work. Some do it better than others (and therefore are able to sell/show work - although much of what sells isn't particularly better than that which never graces a gallery wall or floor, just better marketed).

More thoughts later...for now you should watch this video.

The undisciplined blogger

I need to catch this blog up to date... So here's a quick list of this month's tasks and projects - all the things I should have been blogging about this past month.

March 6 - member's show at the art center, Flock is in it.

March 7 - moved bedroom upstairs in house to the room vacated when Nova & Mike moved out

March 8 - expanded studio to now totally fill first floor of house (except foyer, kitchen and bathroom)

March 11 - started teaching the mosaic class; 8 students (totally full on tools and space)

March 13 - opening reception for the members show at the art center

March 13 - received a commission for a large mosaic, planning and work to begin in June

March 18 - new SMU website went live, was supposed to take overnight to update; was live in 15 minutes and we haven't stopped running yet; just a few of today's web tasks were - faculty photos & bios/cvs, undergrad res hall images/floorplans (create new images, make flash files for each hall showing all floors and get them uploaded and linked), faulty search programming (thankfully Atomic Playpen got that figured out and fixed), numerous links added, created new graphics, typos corrected, forms updated and linked to, etc, etc... most of these remain "in progress"

March 18 - second mosaic class

March 19 - first Winona Arts Center board meeting - I've been asked to be on the board, I think...

March 20 - designed new Winona Arts Center logo, still waiting on the board for which version they liked, if any...

March 20 - gallery shift (volunteered for an occasional shift, staff is all volunteer at this point)

March 22 - received another commission for a mosaic, will be 4 panels totaling 12' x 42", work to begin next month, budget of $1,000 - $1,500 for materials, researching new suppliers and interesting glass options

March 24 - knowledge acknowledged presentation

March 25 - my dad's 80th birthday, or it would have been...

March 25 - third mosaic class

March 28 - reorganized studio(s), still in progress

March 29 - worked on Abelisto's second top bar bee hive (about 75% finished - needs to be totally finished this coming weekend, bees arrive soon after that...)

March 30 - started two more mosaics

That's most of it.
Now that I've cleared the air and caught this blog up, maybe I can keep up with it.

Guerilla Art

This cracked me up...

Guerilla Artist Hangs Nudes Of Irish PM In Dublin Museums - The Times (UK) 03/25/09 (with slideshow)

Art Show

Tomorrow (Friday, March 13th) is the opening of the Winona Arts Center Annual Members Show. The opening is from 5:30 to 7:30.

I entered a glass tile mosaic - Flock.

Mosaic Class at the Winona Arts Center

Last night I taught the first of 4 2-hour mosaic classes at the Winona Arts Center. I have 7 students, all women. I have provided 12" square pieces of Wedi board, glass tiles, Weldbond, and grout. I also brought in tile nippers for the students that wanted to purchase them. One student had her own.

I started the class with a brief bit about the history of mosaics and some mosaic terms. I then explained some general mosaic design considerations, as well as the various methods of building a mosaic and showed them the examples of my mosaic work that I brought in for them to examine. The students then started going though the books I brought, looking for inspiration for their work. Once they had an idea I had them draw it on the Wedi boards - they are doing direct method mosaics - and select the glass tiles in the colors they wanted to use.

I explained soaking the tiles off of the paper and demonstrated cutting the tiles using the nippers. Everyone thought it was easier than they thought it would be to get good cuts. I explained that with mosaic it does not have to be perfect - it's a fairly forgiving art medium. We talked about the various shapes they might need to produce, how to get curved shapes and thin slices and what shapes to avoid using in their mosaic. I explained that I did not want them to get frustrated with their first attempt at mosaic work.

Some of them got started right away and ended up with several tiles glued down before the end of class, others were being more cautious about diving in. I think that any of them that come to all four classes will have no problem finishing a mosaic.

Only one student cut herself on the glass. 

Today two of the students told me they really enjoyed the class and were very glad they signed up for it. One of them told Abelisto that they thought I was a good teacher. That was nice to hear.