Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Calla Lily Mosaic Mural Installation

My latest project happened because of a breast pump.

A friend of mine was looking for one on Freecycle and ran across a woman she had known a few years ago who was giving one away - Amy Blackshaw.
They reconnected with mosaic talk and Amy voiced her dream to do a mosaic on her large garden wall.

The face is 9' x 4' and the side is 8' long and tapers from 4' to 2' tall.

However, she didnt feel that she had the knowledge or skills to do it alone so my friend got her in contact with me. It turned out she lived close by so I went over to meet her and VOILA the Calla Lily Mural was born.

Luckily for me Amy has a great sense of fun and adventure so she let me design whatever I wanted to.
All she asked was that I teach her the process from beginning to end.
She and her two kids - Maya, 7 and Milo, 4 - liked the idea
of using a theme of things one would see in a garden.
So I created a whimsical, large-perspective design of calla lilies,
nasturtiums, insects and their cat!
First I cut a butterfly, bee, lady bug, dragonfly, cat and small butterfly
out of Easyboard and mosaicked them with glass in my studio. The next step was to adhere them to the wall with thinset and connect them all with mirrored "flying lines" as I call them!
After that, the direct tiling began! (Amy did the nasturtiums).

Here are close-ups of the "grass":

Here are close-ups of the Easyboard insets:

Amy proved to be a great worker, tile setter and learner.
Maya, her daughter, helped with the buffing too.

This is me on the left with my "student/assistant", Amy:

The final result: a 56 square foot backyard mosaic mural
(front and side walls)...


...made by:

3 comments:

Stacy Alexander said...

Fantastic, Kim! I'm so happy I could hook you and Amy up together. Back when I worked at IMA, she walked in the door and we hit it off instantly. It was so nice to reconnect with her and even nicer to be able to turn you on to making such an awesome mural with her! Can't wait to see it in person!

Stacy

Mariellen said...

A.B.S.O.L.U.T.E.L.Y. B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L. Love the style, love the concept. Very inspiring work.

Christine Brallier said...

This is a great story - I saw it on Stacy's blog and had to come see more! This is such a fun, happy, colorful mural, I love it!