Oh my, I haven't written a blog in so long....but this sweet little project seemed to warrent it!
A customer reached out to me and said that she had a box of mis-matched china cups and saucers belonging to her late mother. A box that had probably been sitting in a closet or basement for a while. What do you do with that? Someone had suggested to her that I could help by making them into a mosaic. The interesting thing to me is that I have more than once been asked to do a memorial of someone's mom (four times now?)....and I absolutely love the process.
When the box was dropped off to my door, I gingerly opened it and unwrapped each treasure. I looked at them by colours and thickness, and patterns and imagined how they might go together into three small mosaics. The client had asked for potentially welcome signs. I had some sweet little frames and thought perhaps I could make them little framed plaques that said "welcome home".
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My boys were home for the holidays. Thoughts of last year kept arising, compelete lockdown and how they could not come home. The memory of that made this year seem even more special. In the quiet moments, with a full house, I slowly worked on the 3 mosaics for the client and her two siblings...
I made little "welcome home" porcelain tiles and tiny houses....glazed and fired them. I nipped up the cups and saucers and placed them in bowls matching the colours and patterns. I cut up tiny bits of mirror (a small homage to my first mosaic instructor Isaiah Zagar. ) Then I cut the kerdi-board and spray-painted the frames. I slowly started to glue down the patterns.
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After my boys left, I finished the plaques. I added the grout, and I polished them until they were sparkling, and then I placed each one into it's frame.
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"The most important thing one woman can do for another is expand her sense of actual possibilities." - Adrienne Rich
