And now to something more serious

A sneak at something I am working on.

This was originally intended  for an open  BAMM mosaic exhibition that was held in the summer 2009 “Music of the Eye”

As you see I still haven’t finished it. I work on it from time to time in between other mosaics I make for exhibitions and commissions. The mosaic is called “Chorus at the Wake of the Sun”. It is a sort of apocalyptic vision. I wanted to use the idea of the duality of the pupil of the eye and the sun. I am making it ‘indirect’ onto brown paper so that it will have a flat surface when I have made it up.

The blue circles are copper gold leaf glass and the curley shapes (representing the bird chorus) are gold mirror glass)

To fit the strips of glass in a circle, I have to grind the ends to a point.

I have a grinder to do this, but as each piece of cut glass takes about 2 minutes to grind it can become very tedious.

I made “How the Sun Wakes Up” in a similar fashion for the BAMM Breakout exhibition in 2007. 9 pieces of work like this drove me to the brink of madness and back.

As you see from this series I have also used the idea of duality of the sun  and eye.

I also like to “draw with grout” , so you will notice that the birds are drawn into the background, and instead of using a contrasting colour  in the background I will use mainly the same colour, and add a little harmonising colour.

Part of the reason I do this is to illustrate the idea that the subject (in these works that being the bird) is not seperate from the sky (background) but a  part of it. Together they are one, as part of the fabric of the universe.

You might notice that in a lot of my work I also use the same shape of tile and direction of laying in the subjects or motifs and backgrounds, again for this unifying reason. 

Below – “How the Sun Wakes Up” 2007

After I designed “Chorus at the Wake of the Sun” I realized that I must have been indirectly inspired by a poster I have on the ceiling of my work shed. It is the stained glass ceiling in the auditorium of the  “Palau de la Musica Catalana” in Barcelona designed by arcitect Domenech i Montaner.  If you are ever in Barcelona it is well worth a tripto see it.  It was built at the turn of 20th century, and is a magnificent example of Catalan modernism. There are mosaic colomns of colourful folk patterns and flowers on the outside and inside the building,  and a mosaic facade of choir boys and girls at the top of the building which is difficult to see from the narrow street below. The mosaics were made by Lluis Bru.

Inside the auditorium, sculptures of horses, women, flowers and vines adorn the arches and along the front wall  there are eighteen figures  of ladies playing instruments (although not attributed to the Greek goddesses they are commonly known as the muses). The top half of the ladies (busts) holding their instruments are sculptures fixed to the wall, from the waist down they are 2d colourful mosaic. The background of the wall   mosaiced in large terracotta red pieces.

   The stained glass ceiling is a wondrous sight as it bathes you in coloured light streaming from its central “dome” – the sun made up of many orange and yellow smaller suns. It really is a dome – it drops down from the rest of the glass ceiling. Quite magnificent. As the circles and streams of glass reach out to the  outer parts of the ceiling there are blues intoduced and the faces of many young ladies.  It is like a culmination of all the parts of the building. Folk art, deco, nouveau all melded into that one beautiful cieling. I love it!

You are not allowed to take photos inside – so you have to go!

 Here is a photo of the outside though.