Our Day of the Dead Halloween Altar!

We started work on this back in August. 

 We were thinking about Fall and Halloween, my favorite season, absolutely! My partner said "let's make a Day of the Dead" altar. A brilliant idea! So I started envisioning it. First I thought I would have to build shelves. Well, in an example of "ask and you shall receive", I found this bookcase by the side of the road a few days later. 
It was PERFECT! 

 I planned to cut designs into the sides and paint the outside red and the inside orange. So the project began. 

Both Halloween and Day of the Dead are heavy with skulls and skeletons, so we made papier mache skulls. We blew up small balloons, draped the flour/water-dipped newspaper onto them and slowly shaped the heads. 

 

 I sat them out in the sun to make sure they dried all the way through. Then I popped the balloons and, voila, the 3D hollow skulls were ready to paint. 

We kept in mind what the traditional sugar skulls look like and painted silly/odd/scary likenesses - complete with glitter! When finished I covered them with a coat of polyurethane to make them less appetizing to our neighborhood nighttime critters.

  Well, as you can imagine, I was just dying at that point to put this puppy together out front. But I held back until the first day of Fall because that was as long as my patience would hold out. I put it in place beside the front door and began decorating it. 

 First, I put mirror squares on the shelf bottoms so they would reflect the lights. Then I placed found objects like feathers and a deer spinal column on it, along with dried flowers and fake flowers stuck in blue bottles. There is even a raven on one shelf, bringing his black feathered magic. And then I put the skulls in place. 

 My partner cut out the little tissue paper "flags" that are traditional to these altars. They hang above it here. 

 This piece is meant to be fun and kitschy while also expressing our version of Day of the Dead. We, and the neighborhood, are especially enjoying it in the evenings when it is lit up.

 Day of the Dead, Halloween Altar

8' tall x 4' wide x 2' deep

2012

Olympia - A Mosaic Garden Sculpture

I finally finished a project that had literally stood behind me, looking over my shoulder, for over a year!

 I have named her Olympia because of the Olympics that are happening right now. A little corny, I know, but I am usually bad with naming my pieces. And she reminds me of how the gymnasts throw their arms into the air when they "stick" their landings.

 I started sculpting her about a year and a half ago. When that part was finished (shown here) I began mosaicking her. 

  As usual I just let the tessarae ramble where they wished....but then I got off track...or became daunted by the difficulty of mosaicking a 3D piece... or I simply lost my train of thought with her. So behind me she stood, silently and patiently reminding me to keep looking for that lost train of thought! 

So finally a week ago I restarted and finally finished her. 

 I love to use mirror, especially for garden mosaics, because it will reflect all the colors around it and camouflage it too. That makes it a much more interesting thing to discover hidden in the foliage.

She is 52 inches tall, 38 inches wide and 15 inches deep.  Made of styrofoam, cement, glass and ceramic tile tessarae. 2012. ©Kim Larson

Mosaic Garden Art: The Sally Jane Flamingo!

My latest mosaic flamingo sculpture arrived at her 
new home yesterday. I was on pins and needles while I waited 
for her new owner to write and confirm she had arrived. 

Here is side 1:

She is now living with Esther K in Maryville, Tennessee. 

This particular flamingo is a special one. 
Esther contacted me to create this piece as a memorial for her friend/cousin named Sally Jane. It turns out that Sally Jane, who died a year ago of cancer, had been a collector of flamingo art. But Esther also shared the history of her friendship with Sally Jane, beginning in childhood. Sally Jane sounded to me like a happy, unconventional woman who brought joy to Esther's life for decades. 
I have a friend like that too.

Esther also shared with me her experience of her friend's passing.
I won't breach her privacy so I will only give a 
brief outline of the story here:

 Esther was planning to be there with Sally Jane when she died but she would have to travel several hours when that time came. 

Near the end, Esther had a dream in which
Sally Jane was in a white room, surrounded by peaceful and protective beings. The beings welcomed Esther but eventually began to lead Sally Jane away. Those beings wouldn't let Esther go with them. Esther woke up at 3:45 that morning. 
A few hours later Sally Jane's husband called to say she had 
passed away at 3:40am. 

This is side 2:

 

When I read this story, I assured Esther I would allow Sally Jane to 

influence my process, if she would like to! 

I don't pretend to be psychic but 
I simply stayed "open" while I did this mosaic.

I rarely make "pictures" in my mosaics - preferring instead to create 

intuitively and "impressionistically." 

At the end of the first day, I looked at my work and 
realized that I could see what seemed to be an angel
shape where the wing would be. 
I did not in any way create that on purpose! 

 Here is the "angel" wing close-up:

 

I got the feeling that Sally Jane had been there with me!!

But, more amazingly, was the information Esther gave me when she
received this sculpture yesterday. 

I had allowed the colors and shapes to flow, without planning.  

And I saw that I was using colors that werent 

"normal" for a flamingo - like teals and greens. 

But I figure this is art and therefore there are no strict rules.

Well Esther told me that teal was Sally Jane's color and that 
green is her - Esther's - color! 

That, to both of us, confirmed Sally Jane's presence in 

my studio while I created this flamingo! 

  The Sally Jane Flamingo

July, 2012

4 feet tall x 2 feet wide x 3 inches deep

Styrofoam, cement, glass

Woodman Of The World - Mountain View Cemetery Part 3

Recently I began exploring Mountain View Cemetery 
in Oakland CA on my dog walks. 

 I have written about it in two previous posts. 

This gorgeous and odd, even eerie, place was designed by the same 

man who created Central Park as well as many other 

treasures of American landscape design. 
And right next door is St Mary's Cemetery. 
Photos of these headstones come from both places.

 But on my walks there I kept coming upon one particular style of 

tombstone - a log...or sometimes a half-cut tree...

or two logs in the shape of a cross. But always logs. 

And when I examined them more closely I would see the inscription 

"Here Lies A Woodman Of The World". 

 Well I had no idea what they were about at all!! 

And many times there would be a 3 dimensional carving of a dove 

sitting on or inscribed into the log also. 

 The dates on these "logs" are very old with most of the 
people having died in the early part of the 1900s at the latest. 
So I came home and hit the computer and, sure enough, 
the info came right up in Wikipedia. 

Woodman of The World started as a fraternal organization 

and then became a huge insurance company. 
Go to the link below to read more about them.

 These people earned these "logs" for a lifetime of loyalty to the 

company and its' community involvement. 

I had never heard of them before! 

You can find some pretty cool history in an old cemetery!

Click on Woodman Of The World to learn more.

Maxwell Park Mosaic Extravaganza!

There is a small city park in Oakland CA on Fleming near High Street 
that now has the most beautiful rest room 
in America - perhaps the world!! 

Since the Spring of 2008 a group of dedicated mosaic artists and 

neighborhood volunteers have incorporated art 
from the neighborhood youth to create four huge 
and separate mosaic murals. 

This group, Friends of Maxwell Park, 

was started by Nancy Karigaca (below, left, with flowers)
from the neighborhood council as part of a park improvement project.
Nancy has been the coordinator & practical leader extraordinaire!
(photo by Phylece Snyder)

Beverly Shalom, above, right, with flowers, has been the artistic director. Other volunteers and artists - including Nommi Alouf, Phylece Snyder, Nancy Heroux, Sarah Hipolito, Laura Nicodemus - and so many more started this huge project by doing one mosaic a year since 2009.

(photo by Phylece Snyder)

Other tireless workers include Bonnie Henriquez and Roberto Costa (first year coordinators), Susan Scolnick (assistant coordinator), Karen Difrumello & Gabriela Nunez (painting and mosaic talent), Krista Keim (a lot of the design work) & Terry Boggs-Moura (worked almost daily on this for over a year). And Daud Abdullah (photo journalist and mosaic talent) who joined them in 2010.

 Three of the walls were mosaicked on-site with neighborhood children 
participating on "Family Days."

 For the back wall (below), several artists (I helped one day) went into neighborhood schools and rec centers to lead groups of children in turning small pieces of their own 

drawings into mosaics that were then used on these walls. 

These murals are each between approximately 180 - 200 square feet in size. The front mosaic being closer to 350 square feet!! And in each you can find all manner of images - from flowers, to people, to cats and dogs, birds, skunks, raccoons, 

to dragons - both small and large!

The front of the building depicts a stream and rainbow in a forest 

with the moon (by Gina Dominguez of Snapshot Mosaics) 
looking over it all. And words of welcome are spelled out 
in many languages.

The "river" was done by Bonnie Henriquez and Beverly Shalom using the tempered glass style of mosaic!

There are even two places with numbers where children can match their height!

The final opening and dedication was held on Saturday, June 23, 2012 where many people showed their love and support for this project.