Mosaic in the Making

I’ve decided to document this table I am working on. It is my first major commission, really my first time designing to suit someone else’s needs as opposed to me doing what I like and then selling it. In that sense it is different and has been an exciting journey so far.

I met with the client with a few different designs and he settled on one that he liked the most. We talked a little about colours, his direction was that he wanted an overall lightness to the table, using mostly earth tones. The client is truly lovely and very well versed in the arts. He certainly is a patronage of the Arts here in Canberra and organises exhibitions regularly. The current one is an Indigenous exhibition at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre called Skin to Skin, part of the NAIDOC Program.

The client is having the table purpose built by a metal worker. This piece will be an all female artistic pursuit! Nyree Smith is the metal worker and she is really a fantastic human being! You can view her work on her site. She’s making this beautiful table, so we teed up to get together over the weekend to template. My hubby came out to help me, such a dawlin’ because it’s impossible to do this alone! The substrate is SO heavy… It was fun and we finally got everything to fit exactly the way it should! I’m sure the masks we were using were crap, so goodness knows what we inhaled… Note to self: buy good quality masks! I’ve been saying that forever now.

Next step now is to enlarge the design onto paper. I plan on working in the reverse indirect method, using all vitrified ceramic tiles.