I like the idea of synchronicity, which in the dictionary is defined “as the coincidence of events that seem to be meaningfully related, conceived in Jungian theory as an explanatory principle on the same order as causality.” My foray into stained glass was definitely a “coincidence of events”.
I also like the idea of serendipity which is our motto in our studio. Serendipity is ”the gift of being able to make delightful discoveries by pure accident ” which was coined by Horace Walpole after the “Three Princes of Serendip” , a fairy tale.
And so it was that synchronicity and serendipity both worked for me in my latest mosaic endeavors. One day Silva from Mosaic Road blog visited my blog and left a comment. I, of course zoomed over to her site and discovered her wonderful stained glass mosaics. Silva not only covers old guitars and stair risers in stained glass but she does wonderful vase sculptures using stained glass. Thank you Silva for the inspiration!
Then, while investigating Flickr I found to my delight groups of mosaic artists to lose myself in for hours. And in one group, I serendipitously found another glass mosaic artist who totally caught my eye, Rebecca Collins. She made mosaics from glass glued over compositions that she’d created in Photoshop. Plus, she made videos on how to do it! Thank you Rebecca! Ok, now I was getting interested thanks to both of these artists who were wonderfully generous with info and now all I needed was glass.
And here again synchronicity worked for me. One day soon after making this decision to try stained glass mosaics, I got an email from a close friend that her friend’s daughter was getting rid of her mosaic supplies. Would I like them? Well, I said, I’ll be happy to have a look. And what should these supplies be but all sorts of stained glass bits and pieces! Baggies and boxes of gorgeous colorful stained glass, jars of glass in lovely, luscious color! I greedily scooped it all up and with help from Bill, hauled it home to the studio.
Soon I was experimenting and creating my own stained glass mosaics. And learning that with glass there is such a thing as “grout creep” where the grout creeps under the glass and looks sort of messy.
But this next piece turned out quite well, I thought. The collage underneath is based on some of my writing and also some photos of amaryllis and slices of windmill palm photos My daughter-in-law, who is also a very accomplished mosaic artist, liked it. So I couldn’t resist giving it to her for her birthday.
I’ve still got lots to learn and still more equipment to get. For one I need a tumbler to soften the edges of the glass if I want to try using it on vases like Silva does. And I need to get a grinding stone to grind down the sharp edges for future pieces.
This last one is still ungrouted, but I’m liking the abstract composition. Now all I need is to find more time……
Mosaics on stained glass always looks so lovely. But combining the colors and even the shapes of the glass doesn’t look so easy to me. Maybe only artists could really do that right?