This year has been the year for me to fall in love with mixed media.  I credit artjournaling with that – it seems to have escaped the journal and shown up everywhere else, including in my clay work.  And let’s face it.  After 10 years of full time work with clay one tends to gather lots of broken, exploded, not-quit-it attempts.  Or maybe others throw all that away.  I started making totems from broken pieces on a lark years ago.  They got such a great response I started making them on purpose.  Then I moved away from them and on to other things.  Then came artjournlaing and mosaics – but not traditional mosaics.  I discovered mixed media, found object mosaics when planning a yardscape to accompany my Garden Goddess, an early 2011 triumph of idea into action. 

All that is by way of introducing today’s subject which is the on-going process of creating a 4′ x 1’ish foot mosaic panel.  I have finished the panel itself:  wedi board glued and screwed to the front; copper flashing all around to finish the edges; outdoor paint on the back.  In the past I have laid my ideas directly out on the board but find that awkward when it comes time to thin-set them on.  So this time I’m trying a layout that will transfer to the final board. 

Enjoy!

Wylde Women’s Wisdom

Totems and mosaics have taught me this:  things break apart and that is good because their reconfiguration is something more beautiful than the original.  If our hearts do not break, they cannot grow.  If our life doesn’t fall apart, we do not learn compassion for ourselves and others.  The experience is the lesson.  What we do with the lesson is up to us.  Pain always holds a seed of possibility.