Mosaics in Las Vegas

One thing that became apparent to me right away is that the Casinos spend a lot of money on the esthetics of the interiors. Some of it may be ‘over the top’, but I’m perfectly ok with that since most of it is such high quality – which means superior artisans have good paying jobs. In the main areas of the Wynn, these are the mosaics I saw. All kinds of flowers, I was blown away. This is on the wall of their Starbucks. Gets a lot less wear and tear.Then they built the Encore next door and really went to town with the mosaics. I’m only sharing a few of the butterflies, believe me, I took pictures of each and every one. It’s not just the glass mosaic, it is cutting the marble to fit the mosaics that is very impressive.  The Wynn has been around for 13 years, which means a lot of wear and tear on these floors.Which means Alfredo is working every single day repairing the mosaics. I talked to him for a while and complimented him on his wonderful workmanship. Most people never even saw him. But that’s me, I notice the details and I really notice the people doing this kind of work.At the Encore they have just as many floor mosaics, but they also have quite a few wall mosaics. The maintenance is so much easier. This grouted, as are the floor pieces. These are on the wall, they aren’t grouted. It is a different kind of tesserae that is better without grout. They just glow and yes, I touched, I had to. Not only is this not grouted, they were able to use some gold tesserae as well.Glass is an amazing material. This is so well crafted, it will do fine even in the hot Las Vegas sun. The three dimensional sculpture takes the butterflies to a whole new level.One aspect of this is how the light and shadow play off the sculpure. I’m not sure many people actually see this, it is in area that few people get to. Oh well, I explored, I found it. Finally, other casinos are putting mosaic to good use as well. This is the floor at the Grand Canal shops. Traditional designs and colors, which is fitting for the setting.

There are other decorative elements that I will share later.

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Leah

Decorative Arts

Art Nouveau really put the craftsmen to work. A major design element was mosaic.All the Train stations in the Savoie region have the town name in mosaic, with the background being gold tesserae. You notice the shield that looks like the Swiss flag? That is the shield or flag of the region – Savoie, the Swiss have the same white cross on a red background, but it doesn’t go from edge to edge.Even the station is the tiny town of Le Buet has this mosaic. I wonder if they have some artists employed to fix or replace these when they get damaged.Was the Q reversed by mistake? I have to admit that I just noticed that right now.These three images are from the same building, from very ornate to a very simple design. Yet, each has gold.This one from Montreux. That alphabet – pure Art Nouveau. I wonder if it took 37 years to build the building, or if the date means something else. Also, the ironwork of this period is intricate. This is when cast iron became very popular. On the railing, there is both, as well as the use of gold paint.A more modern railing, Art Deco maybe?This beauty was out in the country. It’s the name of this house:Although the house is out in the country, in a prosperous farming community, it doesn’t look like a farmers house. Except for the pickup in front. I wish the architect had included the year this was built. I googled, there is an architect by the same name in Indiana. The building at 2 Rue de Berne still stands and commands very high rent. But no other information.Speaking of mosaics. While wandering around the old city of Geneva we came across L’ancien arsenal. There were a few canons and these wonderful mosaics that describe some of the history of Gevena. This was the open air market in Roman times. By the 15 century, it was turned into the arsenal. Today the building holds the State archives as well as three beautiful mosaics that depict important historical events connected to the city. It’s not easy finding information about these. The artist is named Alexandre Cingria, like most Swiss artists – to most of the world he is a complete unknown. Aside from painting, he designed stained glass for Churches. He wanted to infuse more color and livliness into Swiss Protestant churches. That didn’t go so well in a Calvinist country. So I guess he had to make do with these vibrant scenes outside the arsenal. He died in 1945, the little information I could find said that these were created in 1949, which makes sense. Even if Switzerland was ‘Neutral’ during WWII (hiding Nazi funds in your banks doesn’t exactly make you neutral, it just guarantees that the Nazis will leave you alone), I doubt they spent any time creating art until after the war. So the designs must have been made beforehand. I do love the large stones and pieces of glass that are used here gives these mosaics a very strong tactile feel.I took a close up of this creature decorating one of the cannons.I can understand why had a problem with sparse Calvinist churches. Although Calvin himself was happy to march into the Catholic Cathedral and preach there. Today it is a Protestant Church, Cathedral is a Catholic term. As much as they have tried to simplify things, notice the light fixture, at least they didn’t get rid of the stain glass windows.Like my love for mosaic, there is something about stained glass that makes my heart sing.

 

 

 

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Leah

Alls well that ends well

I returned to the final mosaic class with the understanding that we would be grouting both projects.Thomas had cut the board, he uses tile board, the kind you buy at Home Depot and use when building a shower. Problem for me moving forward, I need to find a different surface, this is very heavy and large. But that is a minor issue. As you can see he istalled the hangers before we transferred the mosaic, so as not to have any problems later. So far so good.Then the trouble really started, remember how I didn’t have plastic over the whole board?  Yeah, big problem, the silly little cheap school glue stuck like cement to the board. It wouldn’t come off. By then I was pretty upset, no I didn’t throw a fit, I remained calm while Thomas came up with suggestions. What he ended up doing was to cut out the center and transfer that.This section on the mesh was transferable.This is what remained on the side, so now, I needed to soak this, remove these pieces and reinstall on the new board. I had to work quickly because I had laid down thinset cement and there was still the issue of grout.It’s a good thing I work fast and was able to salvage all those pieces, since I hadn’t brought any more glass with me.  Thank God, it looks great. I still had my hand to grout. Using a strong glass glue we glued these pieces onto glass and set them for an hour to dry. Well, two of us used too much glue. (we were following instructions). So It was too wet and messy, no grouting till I got home. I took this picture 4 days later, the glue is supposed to dry clear. It really hasn’t dried. Now it will take forever since I’ve grouted it.At least this one was pretty straight forward. It is now hanging in my powder room.

But back to the big mosaic.I took a lot of the powdered grout home. It was a beautiful spring day, so I worked outside.…and worked….Grouting is the hard part. I can’t work with gloves, I need to feel what I’m doing. So my hands are now dry like a reptiles’. The silica just drains out the moisture from everything. Cleaning off the grout is labor intensive. I do love this stage because the final finished piece emerges. The grout really ties everything together.This isn’t a one time appliquation, I kept adding more and more grout till I achieved a relatively flat surface. Here you can see a polished corner next to an area that needs a lot of work.

Half way through, another big problem arose. Remember those hangers?  They are supposed to be on the top of the piece. Well, they weren’t. When Thomas laid out the mosaic, he forgot to check. You might say, so did I, but when I pay for a class, I sort of expect that to be something the instructor pays attention to. I have learned so much from books and online classes – where I know – it’s all up to me. When I pay for a live instructor, I don’t want a newbie. He just learned how to do mosaics himself 1.5 years ago, and immediately set out to teach. Now I understand, every teacher learns from their students, but he wasn’t teaching us, he was working on his own projects along side us.Finished and I am very pleased. One more thing to do. I carefully removed the screws from the back. Then I laid the project on two towels on the grass. I feared that working on a hard surface would harm the mosaic. Very carefully I installed the hangers on the correct side. With the holes left over to indicate where they were before.Signed it on the back and soon this will go and live with my boys. I know they will cherish and love it. A piece of the wedding, the glasses they broke are forever imbedded in a handmade mosaic.

As for me, I think I’ll be sticking with online classes for a while…

 

 

Leah

The big mosaic project

I really wanted to report that the class was amazing. It wasn’t, yes, I learned new things. Some of them because the teacher didn’t teach very well, so I made mistakes that I shouldn’t have.  I don’t like it when a teacher just says, do whatever you ‘feel’ like, while he himself works on his own project. So those mistakes became a learning opportunity.

I had created these simple block letters, first thing was to cover them with  clear plastic on a board.Little by little, I filled in with the broken wedding glass. Some of the dark blue is from a broken bottle. Thomas, the teacher was all about using found objects, he was also all about cutting corners where ever possible. The plastic covered the paper, but my intentions were to continue to the edges of the board. No mention was made about covering the whole board with plastic. Even if I had wanted to, he ‘forgot’ to bring enough plastic.I worked quickly, not something I like doing, but when in class, one works quickly. I wanted to be able to grout this in class,  see if he had any special tips about grouting.

Once I finished the letters I had to come up with a background, something very different from the first one I made for Erez and Becky.Hills and sky, either the Judean Hills in Israel, or the local mountains here in LA, both are usually a brown color. Not right now, after our super rainy winter they are all bright green!  Once I was done, Thomas came over and mentioned that some of the spaces between the tesserae are too big. ‘Maybe I should have said something earlier’ – yeah, maybe you should have instead of working on your own project.  Now I was somewhat aware of this, I was also working quickly, normally I’d take my time with a project this size. Since he was going to bring a special board to transfer this onto, I needed it done by the final class.I created the sky with a bright white, blue, green and pale violet. This is what will give the sky depth. I also played with shapes, hoping that that would give some depth as well. We decided on 18″ x 18″, so I took the project home to finish. Green border, Yoch loves green. It wasn’t easy finding a green glass to break, so they used blue.Before the border.After the border. The boys saw it at this point and are very very impressed with my work.  Yoch said the little green plants remind him of cactus – a plant he loves!

So far so good. Then I went back to class and disaster struck, and that will be dealt with in the next post.

 

 

Leah

The Mosaic Tile House

A known fixture in Venice California, the Mosaic Tile House. I went with Atlas Obscura, but anyone can get in touch and visit the house. Here we have Cheri and Gonzalo inviting us in.Here is Gonzalo behind the gate.

This is one of those, sensory overload kind of places. So much to see, too much to absorb. Cheri makes many of the clay and glass tiles herself, Gonzalo makes the mosaics, paints and creates some very interesting sculptures. To say that color is the most important aspect of their surroundings is an understatement. Every surface outside the house is either covered in mosaic or painted. The  outside of the large studio in the back is painted. The wood wall wouldn’t be able to hold the mosaics. The second story is ‘just’ painted, they are now beginning to add mosaics inside. I’m wondering how the structure holds up with all this concrete and tile. When they don’t like something, they don’t tear anything out, just add a new layer.In no particular order, I am going to recreate a little bit of the experience. These are a small portion of the pictures I took, I realize, editing is necessary, I hope for your sake, I have edited enough.A small portion of Cheri’s massive studio. Making glass tiles.That are then affixed to the exterior of the bathroom window. If one falls off and breaks – no big deal – she has plenty on hand to replace them.This is half of the sliding glass doors that connect the house to the studio.A view into the kitchen. I LOVE mosaic, no way could I live here. I am thankful that they can and that they share their surroundings with other. It all started with a bathroom, twenty some years ago and hasn’t stopped.These clay objects are all destined for a mosaic surface.You can see some here in the wall, along with the cups from a Seder plate. I think I have a similar plate. Cheri collects ceramics from all over the world. Here you also see shapes she herself made, the ice-cream cones, the lizzard. What? Plain wooden floor? And a carpet? What I love is the chair, not one that they painted, but one that gives me ideas.  Not sure I’d ever paint a chair, but who knows?Exterior stairs get different treatment.If you have a kiln, and they have many, slumping glass bottles is easy.  Gonzalo is the welder, if you are missing a piece of silverware – check out this house, you may find it. You won’t be able to remove it.They sell as much of their artwork as they can, what doesn’t sell ends up being used.These reminded me of the Dali painting The Persistance of Memory. I am sure he would approve. Gonzalo said that Simon Rodia, the creator of Watts Towers is a great inspiration to him. I’m sure Rodia would be jealous of all the color and materials here. Here I am, in the artwork. Gonzalo has figured out the perfect location to have you stand and he captures the image in one of the mirror fragments.

My visit started on a cloudy day – which is good for photography, it ended with the sun coming out. Every thing is  shiny and sparkly, but a little harder to photograph.  As fun as it is to take these pictures, just being there, experiencing the space is really what it is all about.

Leah

Mosaic

I had the pleasure of attending an event at St Johns Cathedral in West Adams. I’m a little tired of this meme: great Churches are only in Europe, nothing of consequence is here, especially not in cultureless Los Angeles.

People who say this never explore their own city, that is their own loss.

p1160952I love mosaic, I have mentioned that I need to get back to making my own. This is clearly an inspiration to do so. I mentioned to somebody how these exuberant mosaics remind me of Ravena Italy – huh? was the response.

p1160953These follow the ancient tradition but were only created in the late 60’s. I love it when an ancient art tradition continues and thrives through the ages. My photography here isn’t very good, but this chapel shines with gold. It is interesting to note that in early Christianity Jesus was often shown as a shepard, that image would fade with the many changes in European Christianity.  But some old symbols will always find their way back.

p1160954An aspect of mosaics that intrigues me is the angles and the movement of the tesserae.  This is the hardest thing to achieve. The shadows help give a three-dimensional feeling, but it is figuring out how to lay down the tesserae to add to the sense of a live figure, not just a flat image.

p1160980Another thing that has always grabbed my attention, is the ability to create natural skin tones while creating the human body, especially the face.

p1160948 In all the mosaic work that I have done, I have never tackled a person yet. Not sure if I ever will.

p1160950This is more along the lines of what I have done. Except I haven’t included other materials. In this Cathedral, it is wonderful to see the combination of mosaic and marble.

p1160971That is a whole new level of working with these materials.

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Oh look! Quilt patterns! But of course, it’s not only quilts that rely on basic geometric designs. It is interesting to see how different materials have a very different affect with the exact same design element.  Here I am admiring the use of stone and glass tesserae, surrounded by two very different slabs of marble.

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Initially I was drawn to the medallion designs, but then my eyes moved to the right and I find myself trying to figure out, how by using the same tesserae, they have created a border and then a background that look very different. The background has gold and more blue. Ah the subtulties of the material!

p1160951The sun burst on the ceiling, gold tesserat imbedded in the painted concrete, so effective.

p1160968Jewish synagogues use very little imagery. Maybe some stain-glass or the Textile that covers the ark. Protestant Churches are the same – rather plain rooms. So I enjoy a Church like this, full of color, light and decoration. I love how the light is flowing in over the cross to the exuberant ceiling above.

It isn’t my tradition, I don’t feel the need for this in my relgious life, but I love to be able to come, visit and admire these places of worship.

Leah

More Tiffany

P1110036The Tiffany tour continues, this time in the Original Marshal Fields building, now Macy’s.

Most people never look up!!  Even when 7 floors above you is this amazing incredible vaulted mosaic ceiling.  Temples of commerce are just as ornate as any Church.P1110039You can take the elevator up to the 7th floor and get a much closer view of this incredible work. Not only  the mosaics, there are also a number of globe Tiffany lamps.P1110043I can see why, with all the modern cold white lighting, one misses these warm iridescent globes.P1110046P1110038P1110045These are just a few of the images I took of the actual mosaic.P1110050Ok, so most people don’t go up to Furniture and Design, but it is so worth it just to stare up at this ceiling.P1110051Next stop the old Public Library, today it is The Chicago Cultural Center. Luckily when the new library was built, this building was just too massive and well reinforced, it was just to complicated to destroy.  I know, people love to say – oh my city tears every old building down, but other cities are so much better at preservation. Guess what, all cities tear down old buildings, some more than others.  We can’t keep everything, and those that remain become more important because there are fewer of them.P1110054On the marble bannister, two things happened, they had to cut out the shape in the marble, then painstakingly create the mosaic to fit perfectly.P1110060For all the wonderful mosaics here, and there are more, the dome is the real treasure here. This is the largest Tiffany dome anywhere, 38 feet in diameter, over 30,000 pieces of glass, there is a larger dome on the other side of the building, not designed by Tiffany, Unfortunately I couldn’t get to see it. From images online, it looks like I missed something specialP1110059The zodiac, fish scale glass. The dome was cleaned in 2008 and they were amazed by how much more light comes into the room.  All of these pieces of art demand a lot of TLC in order to maintain their beauty.P1110066Hanging from the dome is this light fixture that mimics the fish tail scales. Yup, my mind is going to a quilt pattern, although it probably is way too much work.P1110052A few more mosaics, this one in an archway celebrates American authors.  Built in 1897, Chicago was determined to prove that they are a world class city, I think they succeeded.P1110065Although we couldn’t enter the hall because they were setting up for a private event, I spied this mosaic off to the side. Hebrew will always catch my eye and in many libraries – you will always find Hebrew. Makes sense since Hebrew is one of the earliest written languages. The alphabet has changed through the years. Of course, Alphabet is a contraction of the two first letters in Hebrew – Aleph -Bet.

The translation is:  The Author who did not know, gave the book and said, please read this.

 

Leah

Louis Comfort Tiffany glass in Chicago, part l

Before I left for Chicago I did a lot of research online about what kind of architectural tours to take.  On the Chicago Architecture Foundation tours there was a tour of Tiffany Treasures, why not, I love glass, this should be interesting.

What can I say but WOW! Of course I knew that Louis Comfort Tiffany created incredible stained glass – most notably lamps and large installations of large windows, but I knew nothing of the mosaics. Unfortunately, most of the research online  doesn’t make much mention of  the mosaics, but doesn’t highlight them.

So a visit to the Marquette Building  was a real eye opener.Tiffany Mosaic in Marquette building, ChicagoThe lobby is incredible, marble, bronze and Tiffany Mosaics. They tell the story of Joliet and Marquette, early French Canadian explorer in the area. Here they are leaving on their journey – receiving blessings as they head out.Tiffany Mosaic in Marquette building, ChicagoTiffany Mosaic in Marquette building, ChicagoA number of things about these mosaics. They were designed by J.A. Holtzer, the mosaic designer for the Tiffany Glass company.  What is really incredible is the glass itself. Louis experimented and created his own glass, this one – an opalescent, iridescent called Favrile.  Once his factory shut down, the recipe for making this was lost.P1110019The glass glows!  I am a lover of mosaics and have never seen such luminescent images.Tiffany Mosaic in Marquette building, ChicagoHe created textured glass, like the grey example to the left of the hand, as well as glass that resembles volcanic glass.  Ancient mosaics used small pieces of glass, Holtzer introduced the idea of cutting larger pieces – something I’m sure he learned from the stained glass.Tiffany Mosaic in Marquette building, ChicagoThis gentleman is a perfect example of using larger segments of glass, makes him really stand out against the traditional mosaic.  The MB is the initials of the Marquette building.P1110014Meeting the native tribes.  The light bulbs are reproduction Edison bulbs. Although there is much more light now in the lobby, these are the type of bulbs that  were installed originally. Tiffany Mosaic in Marquette building, ChicagoThe death and burial of Marquette.P1110026Tiffany Mosaic in Marquette building, ChicagoInteresting how the grey jacket arm is one piece of glass while the face is done in the traditional method. I guess there is something to be said about shading small details that is better done with tiny pieces of glass.P1110011The bronze was incredible as well, so I have to include part of the revolving door.

At the Art Institute I did see an example of the lamps – that is what I was most familiar with, I’m hoping that anyone visiting Chicago also see the mosaics.  The Marquette building is open to the public, so even if you can’t go on a docent led tour, you can see these. I visited on my first day, not realizing I’d be back. Since the MacArthur foundation owns the building, they hand out a very nice brochure as well. Also, in the back lobby there is a very interesting photo exhibit about the development of sky scrappers – but that is for another post.

Leah