Wow... that's really, really cool stuff. BTW, the Roman Villa link isn't working 9at least for me) where was that supposed to go? posted by Navelgazer at 1:40 PM on September 16, 2008
Mosaics didn't interest me much until I saw the one in the movie Alexander - instead of cobblestones in an outdoor meeting area, there was a map of the world, a stone mosaic that was the ground, impervious to elements, and a useful map (and an aide when explaining things to the movie's audience).
Since then, pristine cobblestones or paving now looks like wasted opportunity :-) posted by -harlequin- at 1:57 PM on September 16, 2008
Thanks. Now I feel like a barbarian using these broken plates as improvised weapons. posted by TwelveTwo at 2:59 PM on September 16, 2008
Man, I'd love that Psycho one in my shower. Awesome! posted by Eekacat at 3:45 PM on September 16, 2008
Here is a Flickr set of some sidewalk mosaics I found in Seattle. posted by Tube at 4:10 PM on September 16, 2008
You know, I'd never really thought much about mosaic, except to look at it with a kind of shrug. I'd been doing pickup deranged street theater gigs at the American Visionary Art Museum for four years when they started the first phase of their project to cover all the bare concrete on the facility with a mirror/bottle/ceramic mosaic, and at the time, I really thought it was a step backwards for the place. Forgive me, but I happen to like bare concrete in modern architecture.
Of course, after four more years of pickup deranged street theater gigs, when I was in the midst of a flounder-y attempt at being a freelance building contractor to atone for almost twenty years as a high security micrographic tech and media archivist, they asked if I'd be interested in coming on board for the next year-long phase of mosaic construction.
I'd consumed my 401k, churned through my savings, and was well on the way to the kind of depression where you keep finding yourself on the floor of your kitchen in your underpants surrounded by empty Cool-Whip containers, so naturally I said "sure!"
As construction engineer and number two guy to our lead artist/educator, I spent a year on a diesel lift, mounting rails and cement board panels, helping the artist mark the panels with the overall design, coming up with solutions to technical problems and working out ways to make our final project more long-lived (those media archivist years, with all the boring study of materials archivality, came in handy), and transporting heavy crap from one end of Baltimore to the other. Some 20,000 pounds of finished mosaic panels rode on the top of my Metro that year, which is why my car still rides a little funny.
We worked with kids in juvenile detention programs, homeless shelters, drug treatment centers, and they did most of the construction work and a fair amount of the design, within the overall outlines the artist laid out, and it was the kind of experience of watching people's attitudes change through the study of art that really justifies spending money on art. By the end, when we were rushing to beat our deadlines and the end-of-project date on the HUD grant that funded the project, I came down from the diesel lift and spent the last several months doing mosaic work, too, to help out.
I'm still at the museum, hired on after the grant ran out as the head of facility tech and maintenance, and I'm still working on mosaic, doing little projects here and there when I can sneak them into the garden or hidden corners around the place, and mosaic becomes an answer to a lot of questions that you wouldn't normally connect with mosaic. When regrading our wildflower garden to improve drainage, and after trying to figure out a way to raise the beds without doing something ugly and unnatural looking, I realized that, rather than hide the low curb walls I'd have to build, I could build them freehand (earthship-style), given them a scratch coat, and mosaic them (with a little help from my friends), and bring a little Gaudi to Baltimore.
You get where you can't stop yourself, which is why there's a sad tendency for mosaic to devolve into hippie kitsch, alas, but I'm doing my best to practice restraint. What it really gives you is this amazing sense that there's nothing that can't be salvaged, reused, or repurposed—that everything belongs somewhere, in a context that maybe only you know, and so you mix up a fresh batch of thinset mortar, oil up your glass cutters, and have that great moment of revelation that comes from seeing what's possible.
I think I'll start out right here, in this blue-green glass. posted by sonascope at 4:51 PM on September 16, 2008 [9 favorites]
when there are more favorites than comments you know you have a quality, time-intensive, interesting post...thanks OS. posted by dawson at 5:04 PM on September 16, 2008
This was a fantastic and fun post. Thanks! And damn that Christmas dinnerware set to hell! posted by thatbrunette at 9:04 PM on September 16, 2008
Those Hitchcock murals are great. Some of them are really well done. - Then again, I'm pretty much for anything that glorifies Hitchcock movies. Thanks for that. posted by Kimothy at 9:36 PM on September 16, 2008
That basilica link goes to a picture of the cathedral at Monreale, right?
Isiaah Zagar's lot is a hoot and a holler. I was visiting Philly and walked by it with a friend. We had no idea who had done it. posted by 3.2.3 at 10:16 PM on September 16, 2008
This was awesome. Thank you. Now I have to break things. posted by crataegus at 12:45 AM on September 17, 2008
millions of people go to the walt disney world magic kingdom. and while they all see "cinderella's castle", very few of them notice the gorgeous mosaics in the archway that tell the story of cinderella.
Metafilter: where you keep finding yourself on the floor of your kitchen in your underpants surrounded by empty Cool-Whip containers posted by mecran01 at 8:22 PM on September 17, 2008
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posted by Navelgazer at 1:40 PM on September 16, 2008