End Part One

I have completed the first part of this commission, that also means grouting. The heavy rain has delayed site preparation at the Welsh end of things. So I will start a slate sign started on the open day at Strata Florida.
In the mean time before work starts on site here is the actual poem I have been working on, written by Gwyneth Lewis especially commissioned by CADW for the site.

Strata Florida.......

Soil is the dead
Of all ages. Pass
Through this door
Into Christ, the expanding
Universe. Dimension:
Wonder. Uplands bare,
Riches below. Through
This door, be proud
As a blackbird,
Where the humble fern
Blossomed to stone,
Then back again. This
Door. Find your own elsewhere.
Now. The future. Then. Then now.

By Gwyneth Lewis (the first Welsh Natational Poet).
http://www.gwynethlewis.com/



the last few words



grouting



finished

cleaned up after grouting

Mosaic Update.

A small selection of images showing recent development.

Hi Cosmo.



Blossomed



Then



I am on the last few 2-3 lines of the poem now and I hope to push on with it during the rest of this week. I am starting to think....how will I do the plain areas without any lettering?  

Mosaic Progress 2

Slowly things progress along, if I complete a whole line in one day that is my equivelent of a forced route march. Yesterday I only managed to do    n. Bloss    still every little helps. I am well over half way in terms of text, but still quite a bit of stone to cover. This must mean that there will be plain areas of white to cover.

I have a ritual every morning where I have to scrub and clean up yesterdays work. If I leave it longer than overnight then the cement finger prints I make and the squirt up through the gaps bits are really hard and more difficult to remove. If I try and remove them after the end of the final session it's all to soft and I damage what I just made.

a good scrub with a stiff brush and a tidy up with a metal thing every morning

I give the image files names according to where I am in the poem
This one is called 'a blackb'



this one is called Bloss

    

An Open Day at Strata Florida.

Free to everyone, talks on history and poetry. Recitals of work from poets, and picnic lunches in a medieval style. For a very good account of the days activities see Hiliares blog click here. My role was to run a mosaic workshop as a way of introducing my sculpture for the site. I showed photos of the work in progress and displayed the maquettes I had made for presentations to CADW earlier. 

My stall was pretty busy all afternoon with visitors contributing to a Strata Florida sign which (when I finish it later) could go at the entrance to the site somewhere. 

                  

Here is a montage of photos I took during the days events



two people working on my sign 



Gwyneth Lewis reading her poem Strata Florida



'where the humble fern blossomed to stone'

   
Here is the sign when I bought it home after a fun day out in the Abbey ruins. It is made on paper using what is called the reverse technique. I took a large piece of slate home with me to complete the sign and mount it for display. I also was very pleased to meet Gwyneth Lewis whose poems I am working on. 

I will finish this off later when I get time

Shocker...................!

Approaching half way and had a sticky moment this morning! I don't have enough tiles in stock to complete this whole stone so I order some more from the supplier I have used for over 20 years........only today their phone is dead? I email them with a tile order, but deep down I've got that feeling they may have ceased trading as things just felt strange.

I spent most of the day trying to source the same tiles to complete the job. I spoke to a general UK tile distributer who passed me onto my recomended dealer for that particular manufacturer and tile range.........The upshot was my tiles were not in stock and it would take in the region of 6 weeks to get some. Further more I could not order single sheets either and could only buy tiles by the box full, thats 14 sheets to box. 

I only need one sheet of that colour 2 sheets of another you know 3 of that one etc .....madness to wait 6 weeks and buy a thousand percent more materials than you require. Great service from my new supplier, thanks.

Later in the day I recieved an email to say sadly yes we recently ceased trading, the long and the short of it is: get your tiles from The Mosaic Workshop for their website click here. They bought what was left of the entire stock of my previous supplier. Panic over and my tiles should arrive by the end of the week......The future of mosaic tile distribution may look a little different if information today proves to be correct? 



Riches below.Through . This door



Of all ages. Pass through this door

   

'Giornata' (a days work).

drawing of my new cement spreader

 I was surprised at having to pay £12.50 for this tool, I thought it was a lot for little metal trowel spreader thing. But it is a great tool and invaluable on this job, really good for what I call 'cutting back' which is removing the unused cement around the tiles where another work session will join it. The term 'giornata' is Italian and means a days work. This was very relevant during the Renaissance when painting frescoes, as it was the new lime plaster applied today, joining the wok done yesterday. In some old paintings these joins can be seen as slightly different coloured pigments show one days work from another. My concern is the same, in that cement dried yesterday around the edge of the tiles prevents the new tiles from being positioned very close and seamlessly. If done badly a black grout line will appear if the gap is a little too large. This tool is great at removing the excess cement for good joins.

I have other trowel/spreaders but this is great and now I think very good value for my £12.50.
I also bought a pair of new tile nippers which a great. Very good at cutting tiles into thirds, which is what I need for the black lettering. I have well over a dozen pairs of nippers all rubbish at cutting thirds. Maybe it is important to have sharp nippers and I forgot what it was like, or maybe these are just a great pair of tile nippers..


drawing of my new tile nippers




Dimension. Wonder uplands bare





Mosaic Progress

I thought I would just put a couple of photos on here to show progress. Things have moved along and it's easier to imagine the whole stone now. I think it will look amazing.



Into christ the .....expanding. Universe. Dimension:



Through...this door.

 I wonder if I will be able to remember the whole poem by the time I'm finished? Words are not my medium, but I really get what Gwyneth's talking about, as I'm so close to it now.