S.F. General Hospital Foundation Mini-Heart

I am a long-time student of the Institute of Mosaic Art in Oakland, and have exhibited many of my pieces in their various exhibits. I have gotten to know the staff and Laurel True quite well. IMA has partnered with the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation to help them create 15 small 7" tabletop mosaic hearts for SFGH Foundation donors. I was invited along with the IMA faculty to create one of these hearts. My deadline is Oct 28.

The blank is made out of fiberglass and is really solid and heavy. Some initial design ideas for the heart included a fish, dragon, flowers, a phoenix and a peacock. But many of these elements would have required too much detail for such a small surface. The heart itself is only 6"x7"x3". Then a flash of inspiration came on, and I knew I needed to do a heart globe. I had made a couple of globes before - a stained glass globe, and a mosaic koi globe. The challenge now is to transfer the world map onto a non-spherical surface. More on that later.