Awesome Joolie Art

Only the finest mosaicked pot for my fuzzy cactus friend! 

I've both found and been gifted a lot of tiles this summer. They are beautiful and are mostly samples so they come in small batches. I'm finding the easiest way to make a cohesive design with a lot of disparate materials is to embrace the patchwork look of things and build your theme with color.

I tried to use some mix-in glitter with the grout but got distracted with trying to make nonsanded grout work with these big joints--a bad decision to use that goop--so I didn't pay as much attention to getting the right amount of glitter in the mix as I should have. So the effect is, uh, subtle.* But I learned some stuff and I liked how it turned out and now I'm going to pop a banana plant in this puppy and move on to the next project!

*Virtually undetectable. If you use glitter in your grout, I say commit to it and use more than you think you need. 

Marble and glass tile. This one came together quickly and looked pretty much exactly as I had envisioned it. It helped that it was such a simple design. 

The first mosaic I ever did is in the background.

SOLD! This was a super fun one that I've been working on since...oh, October. Not sure why it took so long but it sat on my desk, barely started, for about five months. Have you ever looked at a pair of reproachful cartoon manatee eyes for that long? I don't recommend it. Once I decided to finish it it took about a week. I'm at the point now where the tiles pretty much do what I want them to do when I cut them, which is an exciting development that hopefully will open up some more complex images soon. 

The big one is sold! I loosely sketched the design ahead of time but pretty much freehanded it, which gives it a loose, spontaneous flow (I hope). 

With bonus hose-jet star! When I first moved to Austin I saw some tiles embedded in a crack in the sidewalk on the Drag and I thought that was the absolute coolest thing. It made me happy to replicate that in front of my house. This was done with the reverse method, which allows one to create the design in the comfort of your studio and install it elsewhere. For some real repair flair, check out Chicago artist Jim Bachor. 

I have been doing more mosaics than prints in recent years, but sometimes I get inspired. This is based on a selfie I took while out riding my bike early in the pandemic. I was wearing sunglasses against UV radiation, a helmet against concussion, and a rather pathetic bandanna mask against Covid-19, and I laughed as I wondered how much good any of it was really going to do me in the face of serious threat. 

This piece was intended for a special exhibit at a group show that was postponed indefinitely this spring. It was originally envisioned as a cute bee, but I was working on it as the country was going into lockdown bit by bit. You can tell I was stressed out; the bee looks about as freaked-out and jagged as I felt.  

This was a big, fun piece that went pretty quickly once I got the flowers out of the way. The pot was a curb score, and all the tesserae was either left over from other projects or shards of ceramic pots that the squirrels pushed over and destroyed over the years. So the only cost was for the adhesive and the grout. Now it lives next to the back door with a happy banana plant in it. 

I got nice and long on this one. Shown at the Georgetown Arts Center in December 2019 and accepted to a group show at The Hive in Bee Cave that was postponed indefinitely this spring.