Schools of fish come to those who wait patiently; if the big ones don’t come, the little ones will

30 genuine Roman pieces of silver lead to inspirational mosaic.

Even in Santa Barbara, where it rarely freezes, colorful beautiful wall tiles in an exterior area  subject to intense heat will delaminate, ruining your mosaic.

Go all out on your proposal! If you really want the project, pull out all of the stops to make your proposal the best professional job possible.  If you do not know how to do some of the computer stuff, hire someone who can.
 

The Italian term “andamento” (plural is andamenti) refers to the flow of the mosaic pieces, called “tesserae.” That is, the individual pieces of a mosaic follow the form of the image that is described. The Romans and Greeks invented this way of making images visually coherent in mosaics. 

View the detail photos from the recent installation at the Outreach Center for the Teaching of Ocean Science building (OCTOS) at UCSB

This Santa Barbara Landscape and Seascape mosaic mural custom commission shows a panorama of local land and sea animals, the historic Stearns Wharf, Bud Bottoms iconic dolphin sculpture and the McKinley Elementary School, where the 6x15 foot long mosaic mural was installed in the cafeteria in 2013.

In 1964 I taught art to West African teens in N Kongsamba, East Cameroun where I was stationed as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I  saved two of my student drawings depicting tribal ceremonies and almost 50 years later these drawings have become mosaics.

A wire armature found at Ross forms the base for this high relief sculptural mosaic inspired by Julie Richey's "Night Shirt," which won the Juror's Choice at the 2009 Society of American Artists' Conference.

In the First Century A.D. in Egypt artists under the influence of Greek and Roman culture created a series of sarcophagus covers in encaustic which have endured as some of the most elegant and poignant portraits ever made.

Cinderella's sisters are not the only women who go under the knife to be more attractive to men. My mosaic is a comment on this bloody commonality, which often actually results in disfiguration.

In the VI Century in Ravenna, Italy the Empress Theodora reigned alongside the Emperor Justinian. Great controversy exists regarding her origins and life. She may have been a Syrian non-royalty who made a name for herself because of her beauty and talents...

This ancient menorah image has seven candles and predates the contemporary eight candelabra.  The original image is from a marble floor in a VI Century Nirim synagogue in Ma'on, Israel.

For my garden I cast mushrooms in concrete using molds which I make and break with each piece so that no two sculptures are alike. Then the stems and tops are individually sculptured, adding more individual character.

A neighbor's broken bowl with a menu in French, a ceramic chef, a tile with pork cuts in French and other food related images on thrift store finds all coalesce in a mosaic in the pique assiette"style.

Implied in the title "Take the Cannoli," rendered in Italian in the mosaic, is the directive "Leave the Gun."  The Godfather got it right in this era of too many weapons and not enough sweetness.

An authentic 11th Century bronze Byzantine cross from Asia Minor dominates this osaic alluding to the Biblical story of the Betrayal of Jesus.  Thirty 4th and 5th Century Roman coins spill from the rocks below the cross.  

About 25 years ago at a Santa Barbara, CA thrift shop I bought nine children’s drawings of animals made on cheap blue sheeting with magic markers.  At the time a screen printer, I replicated the enchanting designs on aprons. Now I have made them into nine individual mosaics.

Ravenna, Italy is the center for the most exqusite Byzantine mosaics.  My series of cloud mosaics reflects my experiences at Luciana Notturni's Ravenna Mosaic Art School and immersion in that beautiful city's wealth of mosaic art. Luciana says "Some people travel to see works of art, others to make them." What a delight to do both in Ravenna.

Tanit was the principle deity of 5th Century B.C. Carthage, in what is now Tunisia in North Africa. This Punic image represented the sky goddess, a mother and fertility symbol, a goddess of war and a deity who watched over and protected her worshipers.

Sands of Time is my response to the terrible sacking of the National Archaeological Museum in Baghdad, Iraq. The oldest examples of mosaics found to date, from 3500 B.C., were found at Warka in what is now Iraq.

In English there is only one word for love. The Greeks have four words to describe that universal feeling: Filia is the love of friendship.  Agape is the ultimate love, unconditional love, spiritual love.

Many painters from Picasso to El Equipo Cronica and other artists have riffed on some of Diego Velasquez's most famous images.  While living in Madrid, Spain in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s I saw the wonderful pop-art ceramic figures based on Las Meninas and other iconic Velasquez paintings made by two artists who called themselves El Equipo Cronica.