Chad's piece that sold!

I’ve talked about Piece by Piece a couple of times in past blog postings. They’re the organization that teaches mosaic techniques to low income and homeless people in the Los Angeles area. I have donated glass to them and a good friend of mine, Leigh Adams teaches for them. Well, they had their first juried show held at the James Gray Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, CA. Bergamot Station is a complex of many galleries and to have a show there is a very prestigious event. I went to a Chihuly show there once and was able to get his autograph, but that’s a whole other story.

The show was awesome and extremely well attended. There were a number of openings going on last night at Bergamot Station. I wandered over to some of the other galleries but nothing compared to the Piece by Piece show. And the work was selling. This is the first time most of these artists have been in a gallery show. So fabulous!!

This weekend I’m teaching a mosaic class so I’ve got mosaic on the brain. As I was shopping around for some extra supplies I stumbled on the Society of American Mosaic Artists. On this web site I found inspiration as well as information. This is a group I’m definitely going to join. One of the pages on their site that’s alot of fun is the suppliers and resources. I plan on doing quite a bit of mosaic in the future and I’m finding tons of inspiration in the materials available.

A trip through the gallery pages shows members work and there are many different levels of expertise. Some pieces are so simple and lovely and others are these massive outdoor commissioned pieces, while others are sculptural. All very cool. I just want to glue tiles and glass to everything. Also check out the page for their conference so that if you’re a mosaic enthusiast you can plan ahead for a trip to Chicago.

When you read the story of how inexpensively Amy created this desk I hope you’ll be motivated to try something fun like this yourself. You can find other cool projects at craftster.org or sign up like redflag and post your own. I think I’m going to go break up some tiles and glass and mosaic something cool, how ’bout you?

The site for the fab supplies is marylandmosaics.com. They have more than everything you would need to stick glass on anything. One of my favorite things to look at are all the different surfaces they sell to mosaic onto. Check that out here. But keep wandering the site. If you want to mosaic this is really the supplier you need to go to.

This piece was created by Jose Robelo

It’s so inspring to see glass enrich the lives of people who wouldn’t necessarily be exposed to it. A really wonderful organization called Piece by Piece is bringing glass mosaic and other techniques of how to create with glass to low-income and homeless people. They are teaching the techniques as well as how to sell and market their work. I recently went to a class in South LA to see what was up. It was incredible. I saw the most amazing work! The fish mosaic pictured above was one of the pieces I just fell in love with. Another piece with a parrot as it’s focal was just awesome. 3D and everything…

This was created by Hugo Sulecio.

Please excuse my hand. I love this piece! So cool. The story of the founding of the organization can be read on their web site at http://www.piecebypiece.org. I was enlightened about Piece by Piece by my good friend Leigh Adams, who teaches with them as well as a number of other facilities and schools. Through her I was able to donate a bunch of my scrap glass to Piece by Piece. Now it’s being used in ways I wouldn’t have necessarily have used it for. And the good thing is that I keep making more scrap for them. I will post updates and other information about this great group every now and then. There’s so much good to say!

]]> http://glassart.craftgossip.com/2009/07/19/mosaic-in-south-los-angeles/feed/ 1 http://glassart.craftgossip.com/2009/05/02/amazing-mosaic-art-by-angela-zimek/ http://glassart.craftgossip.com/2009/05/02/amazing-mosaic-art-by-angela-zimek/#comments Sun, 03 May 2009 01:52:38 +0000 lori greenberg http://glassart.craftgossip.com/?p=600

If you want to see incredible art, click through to the Mosaic Art Sources blog post highlighting Angela Zimek.  You will never look at rocks and glass the same way again.

If you want to see incredible art, click through to the Mosaic Art Sources blog post highlighting Angela Zimek.  You will never look at rocks and glass the same way again.

]]>

Started in January 2009, Daviea began working with schools and students to create mosaics for the community. Read about Daviea, a self-taught mosaic artist who works mostly with upcycled glass.

If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at a mosaic but have been intimidated at grouting something really large, here’s your chance!  Follow the free tutorial at the styrofoam crafts page and voila!  Mosaic’d sea glass in a jiffy.

Liz Cram’s Mosaic Chair was part of the Shards of Color Mosaic Exhibition 2008 in Australia, as highlighted by the Mosaic Art Source Blog.  For more fantastic mosaic work, be sure to check out both of those links!

This is just one image of many that show the work in progress. The one thing that the article did point out is that the artists are Jason Mecier & Christine Shields.