How long does a big mosaic mural take? A long ?‡#% time!
When we first envisioned doing a mural, we considered a hands-on community process suggested by Garden Fairy Heather. She estimated it would take a long weekend. Instead we ended up doing a massively-multi-media mural that will end up taking around half a year to complete. There’s no underestimating the over-achievement potential of the Garden Fairies.
Faces in particular are tricky mosaic subjects…
There are a couple of reasons the Mother Meres Mural took so long, first being our subject was a real person. In the sketch I used another woman whose image was done with mosaics, just as a place holder. The “other” woman didn’t get a lot of compliments, to say the least. This got our attention, noting we were dealing with a historic figure. We all knew we couldn’t do justice to a person’s face if we had to do it on-site, we needed more control. An exact replication is not possible when one chooses mosaics as their medium, but a close representation is possible.
After an exhausting (not so much exhaustive) search, I found some great reference photos of Mother Meres from the 1880s or 1890s at the Tarpon Springs Area Historical Society.
We also found a place to do it. (you know… we dig doin’ it).
Luckily, Heather has a centrally located studio where we could all meet and work and take our time. With the luxury of time and no deadline, the project evolved into a very controlled process. If we didn’t like something we would re-“do it”.
The Mural Marathon begins
The first week of March began our marathon mural project which was done by about 90 volunteers, including 25 children from the Tarpon Springs Recreation Center. A small group of 5 to 14 Garden Fairies works twice a week; Tuesday nights and Sundays. There is a core group who have been with the project from the beginning, with others who come and go.
To view the slide shows of our progress, see the links at the bottom of this post.
Mother gets a lift
Mother Meres’ face underwent almost as many alterations as Joan Rivers’. For Mother’s face we choose very small stone mosaic pieces called tessera, an individual tile mosaic, usually formed in the shape of a cube. Throughout antiquity, mosaics were formed from naturally colored pebbles. Starting around 200 BC tesserae were being manufactured, using marble or limestone, cut into small squares.
As the artisans perfected their craft, they moved onto using colored glass, or clear glass backed with metal foils. Two flatter glass pieces sandwiching with gold helped produce a golden reflection emanating in between the tesserae– a process which was developed by the Byzantines. A far richer and more luminous effect than plain gold leaf would create, achieved a golden reflection in between the tesserae as well as the front.
There’s no underestimating the over-achievement potential of the Garden Fairies.
We have had many questions asked about the project
Here are a few answers:- How long did that thing take? The project will end up taking 3 years from envisioning to completing. We estimate total production will end up being about 2000 hrs. So if one person did this mural it would take them about a year.
- Who paid for the project? The project is funded by the proceeds from the Garden Fairies’ 2008 Garden Tour and Benefit party.
- Have the Garden Fairies done this sort of thing before? Not as a group, this is our first large public art multi-media mural. We have wanted to do a large mural project ever since Heather learned a hands-on community mural process in Texas. The workshop was taught by a renowned mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar. Isiah’s work can be found on over 100 public walls throughout the city of Philadelphia and around the world.
- How do you all work so well together? We have a lot of respect for each other and get a lot out of collaborating. We have all grown immensely as artists and love to help others grow artistically as well. We believe everyone can be creative. It just takes practice. And a little wine. Oh, and Heather’s in charge!
Heed my advice or else!
If you have any other questions use the comment section and we will be happy to answer them.
Check out our progress
Lovely post. So cool to have this much participation to work on such a renowned, large, long project. You guys rock. Superb job. I said it before and I will say it again, I want to be a Garden Fairy. I just may have to move. Siobhan, I died laughing at this comment, “‘Mother Meres’ face underwent almost as many alterations as Joan Rivers’”. Funny part is, I know that it was probably true.
Thank you Donna.
Yes, Mother had her eyes done multiple times and her lips. We were going to give her nose job, but it was voted the nose in no problem. She still will get some painted effects. She is looking forward to her installation and unveiling, where she will overlook her the site of her old vegetable garden.
Maybe you have mentioned it elsewhere but I’d like to hear more about Mother Meres and how you chose her. Are you going to have some kind of explicatory plaque adjacent to the mural? “Humanitarian and gardener” just isn’t enough! What did she do that impressed you enough to conceive this monumental tribute?
Brook
After we lost our original location, we decided to ask the Tarpon Springs Public Art Committee for a recommendation for a new wall. Marlene Gravitz the chair of the committee suggested the 2nd wall location and she also came up with the idea of honoring Mother Meres. That set off a research project to learn more about Mother Meres.
Lots of people are also asking these same questions. So stay tuned to the blog, you can do this by subscribing to the RSS feed, see top right corner on the home page. Soon we will be posting more info about Mother Meres and lots of pics which you will get automatically from the RSS feed. We also will be doing a historic information plaque adjacent to the mural with background information and photos.