Commissions
Time is flying! The last post was at the end of week 5 when Karen Rycheck was here to help. She took some great pictures of the progress up t0 that point, which I'll start this post with.This week I had help from Richard Davis and Jennifer Kuhns. Before getting to work on Monday, we had a terrific meal that Richard had brought to us. Below is proof we had fun, got work done, and ate well.
A very productive week! Karen Rycheck came up from Talent, Oregon and put in 3 full days of work with us. By Thursday we'd completed sturgeon #2, the smallest one, and got a good start on the third one. We decided our fish needed names, so we've christened the first and largest one Stanley the sturgeon, our baby is named Gil, and the third is Wanda.Here are a few shots from the week.
Progress is being made. We've completed piecing the largest sturgeon, and are on to the smallest one. I'm patiently (well, maybe not so patiently!) awaiting shipment of the blue tortillas from Mexico. I had to have 110 lbs of smalti made especially for this project. For those not familiar with smalti, a "tortilla" is the large slab of mosaic glass they make. Usually destined to be chopped up into the small pieces you see the sturgeon made out of, when an artist wants to cut up larger pieces, or tesserae, in mosaic-speak, we order larger chunks of the tortilla. In Italy, the large smalti pieces are called pizzas. Get it? :-)Here are a few photos from the last week.
Beginning the fabrication…
I've started a commission for a mosaic paving to be installed in a Chinese garden in Astoria, Oregon. The garden is currently under construction. There will be several elements of art being created by local artisans, including and art glass lantern to hang above the mosaic, glass donor wall and steel story screen with a moon gate. Also to be installed in the garden are artistic elements created by artisans from China. Eight marble columns carved with dragon designs will surround the mosaic and be topped by a wood lattice.
I'm fabricating the sturgeon mosaic with Mexican smalti, glass made especially for mosaics. It is a 10 feet diameter circle. I have a number of assistants helping me, and we'll be working toward a completion date of September 15, with installation to immediately follow.
Here is a website that describes the garden's design and concept in the Astoria Heritage Square project. Astoria Heritage Square.
I'll be posting updates weekly to chronicle the progress.
On Monday, Peter and I installed the west wall— with the sink and window. Progress…
With the help of expert tile installer Peter Bral, the utility room wall backsplash was installed today. I was a tad nervous heading into this step. Wondering if all the measuring and cutting was really done properly! Things went quite well, and pretty quickly! Next Monday we will install the west wall— the sink and window wall. Then I have to finish cutting all the field tile to inlay the stove wall and east wall. It's getting there!
After a very long wait for the back-ordered 2"x 2" glass field tile to arrive, I finally received it on Monday. Now the task of cutting the pieces and fitting in all the ceramic ribbons and central medallions. I'll be having plenty of fun with my new diamond-blade ring saw in the next week!
