Mini-Heart Globe

With a clear idea of what I wanted to put on the mini-heart for the SFGH foundation mosaic auction piece, my next challenge was to transfer a world map onto a non-spherical surface. How in the world do you do that? Gridlines! If you look at a world globe, you will notice that it has gridlines representing the major longitude and latitude lines, 36 around the equator and 36 around the poles. My first step was to the draw the equator, and decide which longitude line would go around the center of the heart. Then I drew in the 35 other latitude and longitude lines. This resulted in a very skewed grid with skinny sections at the bottom, and fat sections towards the top. Using the gridlines of my world globe for reference, I was able to transfer the landmass outlines onto my heart. The heart substrate now has a very accurate depiction of the world globe. I filled in all the water areas with blue color pencil for easier reference when I lay down the glass. Since this is a rather small form, some of the glass pieces will be very tiny, which is an advantage of using glass instead of ceramic tile. No images of the heart can be displayed until the SFGH foundation has started their publicity campaign.

Glass Art Festival, Sequim, WA

The Glass Art Festival in Sequim, WA was great. Sequim is a small town of 5800 people and is about 2 hours out of Seattle, on the Olympic peninsula. The artist reception was very well attended, and the artwork was all exceptional. The majority of the artists were from Washington state, but some were from CA, OR, NY, Australia, Greece and Turkey. There is a variety of glass styles in the show, including fused, stained glass, mosaics, kilncast, and blown glass. Best in show, 2nd, 3rd, special and merit awards were presented at the reception. My pieces did not receive any awards, but they did appear in 2 separate articles in the local newspapers which was quite exciting.

The festival runs from Sept 1-26. On each Saturday through the month of September, there are glass demos, workshops, artist talks, and a glass alley where vendors sell there glass art and supplies. I attended Michael Dupille's presentation on his body of work. Michael is one of the early pioneers of the fused glass medium. He has a background in illustration, and his style is called fritography, which uses frit to render subjects like a photograph. His work is awesome and inspiring.

A Visit to Conti Studio

On my way to the Art Glass Festival in Sequim, WA., I stopped to visit Don and Carol Conti in Gig Harbor. Their house is about a hour out of Seattle. Carol is the founder of the Association of Stained Glass Lamp Artists (ASGLA), and is a very accomplished lamp maker. After following some winding roads through Gig Harbor, I arrived at their house nestled among a grove of trees with a gorgeous view of the water and Mt. Rainier in the distance.

I met Don at their front porch, and he said that Carol was working on a window in the studio. Their studio is in the basement of their house, and is remarkable - it is very spacious, with a large work table, a light table, and several racks full of glass. Scattered throughout their house are many of the lamps Carol has constructed, and some of the quilt panels assembled by Don for the calendars. Here is Don and Carol next to the window is working on. Don is holding a rebar that will be used to reinforce the panel.

This part of the studio is the workbench for cutting, foiling and grinding. After touring the studio, Carol showed me some of her lamps, and the quilt panels. Scattered throughout the house are many of the stained glass quilt panels that have appeared in the ASGLA calendars. Her favorite quilt is the 2-panel pond life quilt.

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.

Mosaics Accepted into Glass Art Festival

Two of my mosaic pieces (fortune cookie & Day/Night in the City) have been accepted into the juried Glass Art Festival exhibition in Sequim, WA Sept 1-26, 2010. The exhibit includes different types of glass art, such as fused glass, stained glass, kiln formed, blown glass, and mosaics. The Glass Art Festival runs in parallel with the exhibition and features workshops, demonstrations, presentations and vendors.

Also found out my fortune cookie is one of 12 pieces featured on their festival poster. For more information see the Glass Art Festival website. If you live nearby (couple hours west of Seattle), or will be visiting the area, check it out.

Mosaic Mural Intensive - Day 7

Day 7 (Sunday). This is the final day of class. Before grouting, we cover all spots with blue tape that are susceptible to scratches, or discoloration when grouting. We chose a misty gray color for the grout. The grouting is done in 3 steps: 1) apply grout using cellulose sponge, 2) wipe surface of excess grout with tile sponge, 3) dry buff.


We completed the mural in time to prepare the classroom for the IMA 5th Anniversary party later in the afternoon.

Mosaic Mural Intensive - Day 6

Day 6 (Saturday). Today was installation day. We prepped our installation site by taping off the wall around the hardiboard, taping a plastic skirt below it, and covering the floor with red paper and a canvas tarp.


Installation steps include: 1) Stabilize sections with blue tape; 2) Mix thinset, and trowel a mortar bed onto surface starting from bottom left corner; 3) Lift section from floor, remove plastic backing, position it into mortar bed, and guide into place; 4) Press tile pieces firmly into the mortar and remove blue tape; 5) Pick out excess thinset from grout lines; 6) Prepare mortar bed area for next section and attach the section, working bottom to top, left to right; 7) Cut out and attach bridging pieces; 8) Pop out tiles as needed and adjust placement for better fit.

Mosaic Mural Intensive - Day 5

Day 5 (Friday) was a free day from class to allow the glue to dry. I organized a field trip for the class to visit some public mosaic murals in San Francisco, and to have lunch at my mom's restaurant in Chinatown. Amy, Janine, Jody, Sarah, and myself from the class plus Sarah's mom and sister piled into Jody's mini-van for the trip into the city.

We visited the following sites:
- Laurel's Spheres: On Ocean Ave; By Laurel True
- Tiled Steps: Moraga St. between 15th & 16th Aves.; By Crutcher & Barr
- Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy: 19th St. & Collingwood St; By Ellen Blakeley
- Above Elevators of Bart Station: 16th St. & Mission St.
- Mission Creek Mural: Harrison St & 16th St; By Sizemore & True.

Mosaic Mural Intensive - Day 4

Day 4 (Thurs). We finished setting all the sections, and redid some areas where the colors did not flow right. We learned how to trim the mesh, stack the boards, remove the sections from the boards, and how to layout the completed sections on a plastic sheet.


We also learned about packing and prepping for transport, and about prepping for the installation.

Mosaic Mural Intensive - Day 2,3

On Days 2 & 3 (Tues, Wed). We learned more cutting and setting techniques. We are using lots of high fire McIntyre tiles, and some fused dichroic glass. The second day was spent setting most of the flowers and leaves. The third day we finished off the flowers, and set the background and border areas. In setting the background we learned the difference between mixing (colors random) and blending (colors gradient).


Some students concentrated on one section, and others moved between sections. Some students used gel gloves to help ease the pressure on the hands from carving and nipping the tiles.

Mosaic Mural Intensive - Day 1

Day 1 (Monday). This was the first day of the Mural Making Intensive Class at IMA in Oakland. There are 12 of us in the class, taught by Laurel True. Some students came from far away (Vermont, San Diego, Seattle). Laurel covered design, transfer, and prep techniques. Her design is called: Birds of Paradise and is 4'x8'. The 12 of us took turns at the different steps in the process. We are installing the mural in the large IMA classroom, so there is no need to transport it to the installation site.


Mural Prep includes: 1) Marking sections and coding colors, flow and bridging areas; 2) Transferring design onto mesh with Sharpie pens; 3) Covering boards with plastic sheets; 4) Taping mesh to boards.

Goal of Day 1 was to cut and set all mirror pieces. Mirror is used in some border areas, swirls, and veins in the leaves and flowers. Fused dichroic glass are used for the stamens in the hibiscus flowers, and for the feathers in the birds.

Embossed Horse

This is a 9"x9" stained glass panel. The center piece is an antique blue glass that was embossed during a fusing class at the Glass Craft Expo in April. The embossing is done by cutting a stencil out of fiber board, then placing the glass piece over the stencil and heating it in the kiln to slumping temperature. This technique works with stained glass as well as fusable glass. A rose border with opaque and glue chip glass was added to frame the embossed horse.

During the Glass Expo, I bought a Skutt kiln at a discounted rate, and drove it home to avoid the shipping expense. I hope to make more pieces like this once I upgrade our wiring to accommodate the kiln.

Mosaic Postcard

I recently completed a 12"x18" mosaic piece for the CMA challenge with "time" as the theme. The piece was titled: "Day and Night in the City by the Bay", and depicted the San Francisco skyline. I posted a photo on my flickr account, and some of my flickr friends thought it would make a nice postcard. I thought that was a great idea too, so I went to postcards.com and ordered some postcards. If you would like one, send me an email and I can send one to you.