Pre-grouted plaice- grouting unifies the andamento – I can supply a mini film clip to show you how well it refracts
The plaice for a flat fish
I couldn’t avoid the pun, sorry. This has been made for a Lazy Susan – a table centre piece.
Although these wonderful creatures live all over the world, the European plaice live on the sandy continental shelf in about 10 metres of water and are able to survive low salt saturation so can come ashore. They spawn on the easterly North sea and float amongst the plankton. The infant plaice start with the eyes on each side of their head but their double eye migrates around to the top of the head but they remain right-eyed! Turbots on the other hand are left-eyed! Nature, blimey it is a freaky world isn’t it? To make my plaice more easy on the eye, I used florist beads instead of creating the rather unnerving fish eye. They really are beautiful creatures. The distinctive nature of the plaice are the orange spots. To emphasise those, I used iridescent beetroot tiles and copper gold tiles and to complement these orange tiles and give the iridescent tiles the best opportunity to sing. I used matt cinca tiles for the background is a lovely pale dusty pink peppered with iridescent glass tiles, so the refraction of light gives the mosaic a lively appearance.
It strikes me, why was a Lazy Susan called a Lazy Susan? It was named after Jefferson ‘s daughter as she always complained about always getting her food last.
So we have here, a piece that is 54cm in diameter, can be cleaned and is a real table statement. £300 it is yours.
If you wish to have a piece made for a specific place let me know; this can also be a winter barbecue protector.
Another lockdown – are we being wusses about this; or is it one long battle?
Detail from Aberystwyth promenade mosaic: shields
Last weekends’ news from Boris Johnson and Michael Gove has been pretty shocking for all; the effect and impact it has on us in Wales is not to be taken glibly. Our lockdown overlaps England’s lockdown. The curbing of pour freedom means we need to keep mindful. It is a perfect time to do a mosaic, a nice mindful activity that can also be a present.
I know, first-hand what an impact it has having on three generations of my family. My niece who has just delivered a baby girl on Halloween in the North-west of England, no-one can see the baby and support the mother; my partner who is an introvert is actually missing people! and my daughter who is in lockdown studying in Liverpool. Where is this all going, I hear you ask?
It’s about focussing on being logical, keeping off the news streams, understanding the reasoning behind the lockdown; setting goals that are achievable to keep us busy whilst we endure another forced hibernation – making sure we look after ourselves so we can look after and be strong for others.
I have been reading diaries from the people in lockdown during the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918 – The Smithsonian Museum has released some letters and diaries, if you are interested. My thoughts were initially; are we being a bit of a wuss about all this? Surely those of the population that lived through the First World War coped better with a the isolation of the pandemic? – well not really and reading others’ lives puts our issues in to context. Where am I going with this? Many people made diaries during the 1918 pandemic as a way of keeping mindful, reflecting upon a situation they had no control over – and yes, even then they doubted the government’s decisions.
Obviously in 1918, they hadn’t the freedom we have today, which is what makes us feel trapped, but even the dark thoughts we mull over like, ‘will I have forgotten to socialise after all this?’- is a perfectly rational thought.
Christmas is looming, many of us have had our wages clipped, how do we cope with the festive expense? Making do; I will be making my own home-made gifts and special sauces bottled up in ribbons, salad dressings, mustards, flavoured gins, and biscuits for cheese. I can enjoy looking for old tins online or Etsy etc to make the gifts special or creating small mosaiced boxes for keepsakes. The activity of making and mosaicing is mindful as well as knowing that your gift is made with thought, love and time, and of course less costly on the pocket.
Keep up that diary and set of tasks, however small. The activity of crossing off those tasks allows you to be in control. Weekly, monthly or daily is all appropriate. To maintain safety, mountain climbers look for the next step and not the top of the mountain. If you are thinking about learning a mosaic in the next lockdown, my course is still available to enrol through Lifelong learning https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/lifelong-learning/online-learning/ and is £45, not including materials. It is self-paced, lots of feedback, lots of demonstrations and advice on design, what to make, what tiles to choose etc, The course finishes in March 2021, so lots of time to really get to grips with it.
I have now started my new ‘ in conversation with..’ series of chats with fellow mosaicists. They will appear on this blog from time to time.
This is a term used for ‘found objects’ is object trouve. Mosaic designs start from many sources; commissions, childhood memories, colours, or just the tiles themselves. Just recently I purchased some gorgeous velvet beetroot iridescent tiles from Bath mosaic supplies. For me this is like coveting a pair of high heel shoes. I HAD to have some! They have already been used in a Lazy Susan Plaice circle design.
So it is with this theme that I talk about three mosaics, created from using objet trouve.
Catenary – a piece of old nylon blue fishing rope discarded on the beach. This is from my cat series. A play on the words with cat in the title. My cat was a great prowler at the time. He was brown and fawn. The ginger tiles matched the blue rope that makes this mosaic sing. Catenary means a wire suspended from tow structures – a bit like a tight rope. I use this image for my ‘Night on the Tiles’ walk. He prowled the streets at night, elegant and composed.
Covid chameleon and catenary in the background
Covid chameleon was made during the pandemic lock down. It started with finding a shell lying there discarded on the beach; when my daughter was younger we used to call them mermaids rings. This had the hole pierced in just the right direction to form a chameleon’s eye. The rainbow at the time was being used widely to represent the NHS and I decided that it would be a good metaphor for us all adapting to the new normal. Just like the chameleon.
And today I found an unusual pebble – a mixture of quartz and not sure what the other stone is – it will make a great eye. Watch this space. What will it be?
aberdabbadoo 