Mosaic Odysseys Festival – from London to Athens to Mykonos

Two weeks ago I returned from Athens from the Mosaic Odysseys exhibition which has now moved onto Mykonos. Being in Greece was an inspiring experience, I climbed the Acropolis and Lykavittos Hill and even though there were crowds of people around me, I still felt a connection with the ancient Greeks and I was in awe of the Greek Gods.  Spread out before me was the whole of Athens and I imagined what it must have been like all those years ago with temples and lodgings scattered about. One evening on top of Lykavittos Hill I watched a storm brewing, lightning bolts lit the sky reminding me I was in Zeus’ territory.

The exhibition was held in the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation, a modern light and spacious building with a theatre. Our exhibition was displayed on two floors.There were more works on show than there were in London. More pieces by the  Greek artists and lovely big photos of pieces that were sold in London (printed by Lydia Papadopoulou’s husband). So the whole exhibition was there in a sense.

On Friday 9th September we had the inauguration. The place was buzzing with people all night. New people were met and lots was said.

Michael Cacoyannis Foundation

 

Inauguration of Mosaic Odysseys in Athens

 

Me with my doves and photos of my works sold in London

 

Sunrise in Athens

 

View from the Acropolis

Now the exhibition is in Mykonos until 30th September. Unfortunately I can’t be there as I am at Somerset Crafts having set up a temporary studio for the duration of Somerset Art Weeks.

The work looks wonderful in a magical setting. I wish I was there! You can see pictures on the Mosaic Odysseys facebook page.

I have been reassured by Artemis Klitsi, one of the Greek mosaic artists that they are taking great care of my doves although they had trouble the first night keeping them from flying out to join the night life and the second day they wanted to fly to Delos!

Here is Lydia Papadopoulou feeding them with grapes!

Lydia Feeding the “Doves Who Bring Ambrosia to the Gods”

🙂

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The Doves Who Bring Ambrosia to the Gods

Mosaic Odysseys Festival moving on to Athens and Mykonos

The first exhibition for the Mosaic Odysseys Festival at the Hellenic Centre  in London was a great success. We had a lot of visitors and several sales.
After selling my works “The Whirlwind That Takes Me There” , “The Enchanter“,and “The Four Winds“, I decided to make new works to send to Greece.
I wanted to make 3 dimensional birds and initially thought about my gold birds that appear in my work frequently. They would be more realistic and fly on their own odyssey to Athens…(only the courier would spoil my fantasy) . However I dipped into the BOOK once again (Homer’s Odyssey in case you wondered) …and found just what I was looking for.

It’s in the beginning of the section where Circe tells Odysseus how to escape from the House of Hades. She tells him how he must avoid the sirens song, then goes on to mention the overhanging and very high rocks that the gods call the Wanderers. She says …
“Here not even a bird may pass, no, not even the timid doves that bring ambrosia to Father Jove, but the sheer rock always carries off one of them, and Father Jove has to send another to make up their number…”

I decided to make the doves so they were partly 3 dimensional but so you can still hang them on the wall. And hang them rather like Hilda Ogden’s very “tasteful flying ducks” in Coronation Street!!  (Sorry, did I say tasteful? Oh yes, so I did)

I cut out my doves from plywood with only one wing and constructed the others 3 dimensionally. I have used a little of my hand gilded metal leaf glass in them.

For the bodies I used polystyrene eggs and cut them in half.

I chose these funny circle design milliefiori tiles for eyes to illustrate the exhaustion the dove feels after the journey!

A persistent small spider wanted to get in on the action!

Various glass on the inside wings.

Wings are fixed securely.

Bodies and copper wire feet are attached.

Fly my babies…

The Doves Who Bring Ambrosia to the Gods (take 1)

The tin of rice pudding is of course a joke, although I am tempted to use it in the exhibition.  However there are shipping issues getting tins of food through customs as well as copyright issues using the logo. I wrote to Ambrosia, but I got no reply.
So they will bring symbolic gifts …

The Doves Who Bring Ambrosia to the Gods (take 2)

…where ambrosia is a nectar or a honey made by bees and flowers.

Close up…

The Mosaic Odysseys exhibition will be at the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation in Athens from September 9th to September 18th.

The final exhibition will be at the Muncipal Art Gallery of Mykonos, starting 23rd September and finishing 3rd October.

Exhibiting artists –

Greek artists :

Ioannis Touliatos, Artemis Klitsi, Eftychia Finou, Vasso Spanou, Lydia Papadopoulos, Alexandros Bassadis,

UK artists:

Dugald MacInnes, Nathalie Vin, Aliyahgator, Arianna Puntin, and myself.

Have a look at our website here

Want to offer sponsorship? Get in touch!

🙂

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The Whirlwind That Takes Me There (animation)

Marble Mosaic Company and Ansar Mosaic

If you read my post The Enchanter, you will remember I used some beautiful vintage tiles in the work that were given to me by mosaicist, Elaine M Goodwin. They are lovely strong coloured thick glass tiles very similar to Italian piastrina smalti. Elaine told me she had purchased them from the Marble Mosaic Company in Weston Super Mare in the 1980’s and believed they were made by them. 

As far as I know we don’t have any companies in the UK that make glass mosaic tiles today so I was eager to find out more and I contacted the Marble Mosaic company.

The company director, Stephen Maddalena sent me some fascinating information and photos of his family’s company and it was a pleasure to meet him when he came to one of my workshops and made his first mosaic!

So I would like to share with you this lovely bit of history…

Stephen’s grandfather Romano Maddalena founded The Marble Mosaic Co in 1905. He came from Fanna, which is a small town in the Friuli region of Italy, about 75 miles north of Venice and 10 miles from Spilimbergo, where the mosaic school is based (scuolamosaicistifriuli.it).

The company initially focussed on laying marble mosaic and tarrazzo floors, which then developed in the 1950’s to include the fixing of glass mosaic tiles (bought in from Italy) as the external wall cladding of new buildings.

Romano’s sons of his first marriage then joined the business.

Stephen’s uncle Peter on the right by the floor polishing machine.

 Uncle Peter went on to become the manager of Marble Mosaic Company’s factory by Temple Meads station in Bristol, during which time it’s activities progressively developed from insitu mosaic and terrazzo work to the manufacture of precast terrazzo tiles and then on to the production of precast concrete cladding panels (the latter of which they still produce today)

In the 1920’s their work included the supply of precast terrazzo and cast stone for the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane.

During the 1970’s they produced  precast concrete panels for the external cladding of Clifton Cathedral  by a method that is similar to the “face-up” way in which an insitu terrazzo floor is traditionally laid, except that the coarse aggregate in the concrete mix was exposed by washing away the cement matrix in order to produce a rough-textured face, instead of grinding and polishing its surface.

The last vitreous mosaic project undertaken by MMC was probably Fairfax House in the early 1960’s. Long since demolished, the site is now the Galleries shopping centre in Broadmead.

Here are some early examples of the company’s marble mosaic work believed to have dated from 1905…

Terrazzo Lion

However, it was Stephen’s uncle Joseph (“Beppi” – 1st son of Stephen’s grandfather’s 2nd marriage) who separately set up and operated Ansar Mosaic in the 1960’s. Ansar Mosaic initially produced the glass mosaic tiles at Weston, but it became more cost effective for the business to purchase loose tiles from Italy and then set them into paper-backed sheets here. This change was about the time of the move from imperial to decimal dimensions, so may have been necessary to avoid the costs of converting their machinery. Ansar Mosaic occupied what had been the Arena Works of the Royal Potteries off Winterstoke Road in Weston-super-Mare. Stephen recollects a furnace in the building when he was young and stacks of mesh frames used to arrange the loose mosaic tiles before being backed with brown paper. When Ansar closed, it coincided with Marble Mosaic Company’s need to expand. Marble Mosaic’s therefore bought Ansar’s property and an adjacent plot of land in order to built a larger factory to produce its precast cladding panels. It then transferred the business from Bristol to Weston Super Mare.

So there you have it, a fascinating history! And here are some of my Ansar vintage tiles, although I am still not sure if they were made in Weston Super Mare or Italy! Whichever though they are really beautiful and lovely to use.

Ansar glass tiles

Thank you Stephen Maddalena from Marble Mosaic Company for the information and photos and thank you Elaine M Goodwin !

🙂

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The Four Winds

This was my third piece for the Mosaic Odysseys festival.

I love the story of the four winds in Homer’s Odyssey.

Aeolus, keeper of the winds gave Odysseus a bag of wind bound up with silver thread to help him on his journey. He stored it safely on the ship and at first it was only the fair west wind that blew. However Odysseus’ men believed it to be full of gold and silver so they opened the bag and let out the four winds  … “They loosed the sack whereupon the wind flew howling forth and raised a storm that carried us weeping out to sea and away from our own country” (The Odyssey – book X by Homer)

The Four Winds or “Anemoi” were the wind gods. Boreas was the north wind god bringing cold winter winds, Zephyrus was the west wind god bringing spring and summer breezes, Notos was the south wind god who brought later summer and autumn storms and Eurus was the east wind god bringing warm winds and rain.

After a few rough sketches I came up with another rough one …

Uh oh! Did you notice my mistake? I got east and west the wrong way around which might explain why I get lost so easily in big cities (or anywhere really!) My map reading is hopeless and if I drive or walk somewhere new I have real trouble reversing the directions to get back. I think it is a kind of map dyslexia!

Luckily I noticed before I started the mosaic so was able to flip the design!

I started with  Eurus , the east wind. To hide the cut edges of the deep foil backed glass I cut the rain drops from, I built up the cement adhesive in between to lay the hand gilded silver metal leaf glass and mirror. Then stained glass was laid on edge either side of the rain drops.

For Notos, the south wind, I used a mixture of marble, stone, ceramic and gold lipped oyster and a little silver leaf glass to depict storm clouds.

I used warm colours of Italian smalti glass and milliefiori flowers for Zephyrus, the spring west wind, the gentle curves in the design imitating the gentle breezes.

I imagined the Boreas wind would look like cold silver and white snakes, and I used smalti, hand gilded silver leaf glass, Italian silver leaf glass, vitreous glass tile, and gold lipped oyster shell.

Just like the other two mosaics the bird is made of Italian gold leaf glass.

You might notice I laid some mirror tile below the tail of the bird. This was because I was going to use transparent rods to illustrate the Notos wind coming from the storm clouds but I changed my mind, it didn’t work and I ended up using slate and smalti laid on edge with silver leaf glass as the bolt of lightning.

I grouted the work in different shades of grey, Zephyrus was a paler grey than the rest in dark charcoal and I left the slate and marble sections ungrouted.

 

 

The Four Winds (smalti, milliefiori, marble, slate, stone, gold lipped oyster shell, vitreous glass tile, iridescent glass tile, stained glass, metal foil glass, hand gilded metal leaf glass, silver leaf glass, gold leaf glass)

 

The Mosaic Odysseys Festival

The first exhibition is now over at the Hellenic Centre in London.

I was delighted to sell all three works I made.

My work sold at the Hellenic Centre. From left to right: The Four Winds, The Enchanter, The Whirlwind That Takes Me There

I will be making some new work for the next two exhibitions of this wonderful mosaic odyssey!

The festival will move onto Athens at the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation from September 9th to September 18th.

The final exhibition will be at the Muncipal Art Gallery of Mykonos, starting 23rd September and finishing 3rd October.

Exhibiting artists –

Greek artists :

Ioannis Touliatos, Artemis Klitsi, Eftychia Finou, Vasso Spanou, Lydia Papadopoulos, Alexandros Bassadis,

UK artists:

Dugald MacInnes, Nathalie Vin, Aliyahgator, Arianna Puntin, and myself.

Have a look at our website here

Thank you to Artfinder for publicity and for sponsoring our printing costs!

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The Enchanter

This is the second piece I made for the Mosaic Odysseys festival.

I don’t think it needs much explanation except that I see the sun as an enchanter…always luring me towards him. And how enchanting he always is, how beautiful he colours the sky when he rises and sets. I want to bask in his light and feel his warmth on my skin.

I made the sun with transparent coloured glass rounds, gold leaf glass and hand gilded metal leaf glass. I also gilded the board beforehand to emphasise the gold colour and add texture to the transparent rounds.

 

Detail before grout

As well as using Italian piastrina smalti (the red and orange glass) I have also used a strong coloured glass tile very similar to piastrina smalti that was given to me by Elaine M Goodwin. She told me she had bought it from a tile company called Marble Mosaic Company based in Weston Super Mare in the 1980’s. She said they were an Italian family. I wanted to find out more so I got in touch with the company.

It is a fascinating story of the company’s mosaic history passed onto me by the Marble Mosaic Company director Stephen Maddalena. Stephen even came to do his first mosaic workshop with me where he told me more snippets of information and then sent me photos of the some of the company’s mosaic panels from the early 1900’s.

However I can’t do the story justice here so I will write another post about it soon with all the photos he sent me to show you!

So here is my finished piece.

The Enchanter
(glass tile, gold leaf glass, millefiori, hand gilded metal leaf glass, glass rounds, metal leaf on board)

 

The Mosaic Odysseys Festival

The first exhibition will run for a week at the Hellenic Centre in London starting on Tuesday July 19th and finishing on Saturday July 23rd.

Meet the artists: Tuesday 19 July, 6.30pm-8.30pm.

Exhibiting artists –

Greek artists :

Ioannis Touliatos, Artemis Klitsi, Eftychia Finou, Vasso Spanou, Lydia Papadopoulos, Alexandros Bassadis,

UK artists:

Dugald MacInnes, Nathalie Vin, Aliyahgator, Arianna Puntin, and myself.

The festival will then move to Athens with an exhibition at the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation from September 9th to September 18th.

The final exhibition will be at the Muncipal Art Gallery of Mykonos, starting 23rd September and finishing 3rd October.

Have a look at our website here

Thank you to Artfinder for publicity and for sponsoring our printing costs!

Come back soon to read about the history of those vintage glass tiles

😉

Anglo – Greek Mosaic Odysseys Festival

The Whirlwind That Takes Me There

I’ve been making some new work in the last few months for a festival of mosaic art involving 6 Greek and 4 other UK mosaic artists.

We aim to promote a cultural exchange between Greek and British mosaic artists in order to develop friendships and a professional network between us and an opportunity to showcase our works together.

Each artist will be exhibiting new mosaic work inspired by their own personal interpretation of the theme Mosaic Odysseys.

There were many ways to interpret a mosaic Odyssey and like some of the other Greek artists I chose Homer’s Odyssey for inspiration. The Odyssey is a wonderful story about the journey of Odysseus and his men returning home after the Trojan war.

At the same time I was considering making a series about the long journey’s of birds and perhaps as a metaphor for the journey’s of refugees. As I sifted through the Odyssey for inspiration, it became clear that it was the weather Odysseus encountered on his journey that connected all three ideas.

The weather is something we all understand (in a manner of speaking), yet when it’s written about in a mythological story it is deeply symbolic.

So through the challenges of my own artistic journey I made my first piece …

Whirlwind drawing

 

Whirlwind in progress

 

Detail before the grout

 

Grouting

Grouting this piece was particularly harrowing, I wasn’t sure if I should do it but there were some areas that really needed it.

The finished piece …

The Whirlwind That Takes Me There

(smalti, glass tile, gold and copper leaf glass tile, Jurassic Coast fossil, gold lipped oyster shell/mother of pearl, glass tile, glass gems, glass rod, glass marbles, marble, slate, quartz, hand gilded metal leaf glass, foil backed glass tile, ceramic tile, milliefiori, paint)

In this piece I used quite a variety of materials. The gold lipped oyster shell was particularly exciting to use as it was given to me by mosaic artist Elaine M Goodwin, who told me it came from Boris Anrep’s  workshop supplies. Anrep created mosaics in the National Gallery, Westminster Cathedral and the Bank of England amongst other monumental mosaics.

 The shell(s) must have been very large and they are cut into good sized chunks with a saw but I didn’t want the straight lines so I had to break the pieces. It’s really tough shell and was very difficult to cut. I had to slice it first with a hammer and hardy before breaking it into pieces.

 

Detail – The Whirlwind That Takes Me There

 

Detail

 

Detail

Exhibiting artists in the Mosaic Odysseys exhibition:

Greek artists :

Ioannis Touliatos, Artemis Klitsi, Eftychia Finou, Vasso Spanou, Lydia Papadopoulos, Alexandros Bassadis,

UK artists:

Dugald MacInnes, Nathalie Vin, Aliyahgator, Arianna Puntin, and myself.

The first exhibition will run for a week at the Hellenic Centre in London starting on Tuesday July 19th and finishing on Saturday July 23rd.

Meet the artists: Tuesday 19 July, 6.30pm-8.30pm.

The festival will then move to Athens with an exhibition at the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation from September 9th to September 18th.

The final exhibition will be at the Muncipal Art Gallery of Mykonos, starting 23rd September and finishing 3rd October.

Have a look at our website here

Thank you to Artfinder  for publicity and for sponsoring our printing costs!

Come back soon to see my second piece for the festival that includes some vintage glass tiles with an interesting history

😉

 

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