JOANNE CHASE

I love to immerse myself in all aspects of the world of plants, growing edibles and ornamentals, walking amongst wild flowers, harvesting for food and medicine. Orchids are amazing flowers with such complex and unlikely architecture. Our local natives are miniscule and grow from the ground while tropical orchids such as I’ve recently seen in Panamaattach themselves to trees and have bigger, showy flowers. They all delight me and have inspired this body of work along with the notion of resonance, something that evokes a strong emotion, such as these flowers do for me.

KORY DOLLAR

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“Classic Ribbon Vase” Tina Ellis

After representing glass artists to galleries for eight years, Tina found herself compelled to create her own artwork. She was inspired to work with dichroic glass because of its lively and reflective light transmitting qualities. The glass she uses is predominantly recycled. Tina hand cuts and fuses each piece of glass creating soft pillowed pieces for her mosaics. She also slumps some pieces of the molten glass to fit the form on which she is working.

This exhibit is a series of mosaic vases. Most of the vases are recycled period pieces. Tina’s work contrasts classical shapes with contemporary materials. She loves the way these contrasting elements play off of each other creating an entirely different expression.

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“Gimli” Jennifer Kuhns

My specialty is stained glass mosaic, with emphasis on use of reclaimed materials.  I collect stained glass scraps from leaded and fused glass artists, tiles are scavenged from contractors, tile setters, and salvage yards.  The bases for my fine art panels are leftover tile boards, cupboard doors, and old windows.

Throughout my life, faces have been the primary focus of my artwork.  If I’m stuck waiting in a line or at an airport, I entertain myself by sketching the faces of the people around me.  I love how different all of our faces are, and yet so similar.  The lines and contours of a face tell a story.  The arch of an eyebrow or clenching of a jaw can completely change a person’s expression.

While I have always enjoyed sketching realistic faces, I began to play with use of unexpected colors in my twenties, working in oil pastel.  From there, my faces became more and more whimsical as I also worked in linocut and collage, and when I discovered mosaic, I began by translating many of my earlier designs using tile and glass.

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“More Orange Bubbles” Jill McAlvage Smith

My sisters accuse me of having enough Scrabble tiles to write a novel. I don’t. But almost.

I am a finder, a collector, a bricoleur. Each of my artistic journeys begins with the hunt. I can be found most weekends haunting yard sales, imagining new lives for the dusty treasures I unearth.

I am passionate about creating my artworks using entirely salvaged and found materials (with the notable exception of adhesive and grout). My creative process begins with those discarded items. I am inspired by the challenge of transforming these rescued and reclaimed objects into meaningful works of art.

“Rooster” Penny Meads

Mosaic art creating for me is a form of mental therapy.  When working on a piece I can clear my mind of everything and find relaxation in creating a piece.  I have taught myself over many years and consider myself an advanced amateur.  When asked to describe how I do this, I describe it as having a vision and working backwards like a jigsaw puzzle.

“Joy of Joys” Mimi Near

I fell in love with glass mosaic the moment I encountered this intrepid art form in the Cathedrals of Europe at age 13. Using the technical skills I gained from being a journeyman tilesetter, the understanding of mosaic art from my studies inRavennaItaly and various art and design classes I set out to explore the inner and outer world of mosaic art. I create mosaics for Public Art Installations as well as private residence installations such as water features, sculptural interior or exterior pieces, bathrooms, kitchens, terraces etc. I also create what could be considered “Fine Art” that is hung as a painting would be hung in one’s home. The pieces I have created for this show have been inspired by a variety of things, my recent exploration of Spain, my love of the natural world and my absolute infatuation with the creation process.

“Mosaic Houses” Karen Rycheck

Exploring different subject matters and concepts ranging from light to dark and whimsical to weighty drives my art making.

I begin a work with a general concept, giving myself space to develop the piece as I’m interacting with it. Allowing myself more room to play in my abstract work, I focus on design, texture and color as my guides.

Different materials call to me for each individual piece, so various types of glass, clay, stone, and metal as well as non-traditional materials such as CD’s and LP’s may all be found in my work. Choosing not to limit myself by material, I select my medium according to what sense I want to convey in the piece itself.

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“Out to Sea” Wilma Wyss

The different settings and cultures that I’ve experienced are reflected in my mosaic work. My childhood was a multicultural gyre: I was raised by Swiss parents in the U.S. and Africa, and often felt like an outsider, spiraling between continental divides. I’m inspired by the lively, colorful ornamentation in African culture that often draws from nature, even as it collides in my art with the Swiss tradition of orderliness and precision-a collision I hope infuses my work with intriguing contrasts and a dichotomy of order and the unexpected. As a resident of the Bay Area for 25 years, I also feel a strong connection to the western landscape, and often integrate natural materials in my work, including river rock, pebbles, beach glass, fossils and shells. Color, texture and shape are key. I enjoy the technical challenges in creating my mosaic work, whether applying the mosaic to a substrate that I cast in concrete, build up an armature of wire mesh, or repurpose an old frame or ceramic roof tile.

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