Mosaic Moments

We made it! The mosaic parts and me have arrived safe in Ayvalik. All went well. The only tricky situation during the trip was when I arrived in Istanbul and the costums officer asked me to open my suitcases. Oh I was sweating! They brought an extra art specialist to look at the mosaic but he immediately recognized it as new. I was sweating not only because I feared they would confiscate it but also because I had to open the elaborate packaging – it took me over half an hour to close it again. 

Which was  then lovingly handled by our friend Ümit who picked me up  in his red car at Istanbul airport and together with his wife hosted me for one beautiful day in the city by the Bosphorus.

On Monday night I arrived in Ayvalik. Tulya my dear friend fetched me at the bus stop in the middle of the night with my super heavy suitcases. It is so nice to be back and feel soo at home at her house.

But also our house has made good progress. On Tuesday I arranged my workshop in the house. It’s so nice to be reunited with the fish figures that we made in Gaziantep. This week my job was to add the kontur lines around the figures in background color

The workers had to make some changes in the Hamam bathroom.

Wednesday, Dariya a young restaurateur, started to help with the background stones that have to be added to two wall parts.

On Thursday Nazuh started to work with the stone breaking machine that was kindly sent by Kargo from Ankara by Mustafa Salih my first mosaic teacher.

Nazuh also brought the concrete mixer from the Manzara company  to tumble the background stones. (Manzara Ayvalik will later look after our house and let it – click on the link and you see their other properties for rent)

The tumbling works very well. Why did I not enquire  about this earlier?

After one hour of tumbling with a bit of sand and water, the stones come out with beautifully soft edges and all sides equally colored. No polish or rough surfaces left. Very useful !

On Friday and Saturday we searched for containers that have a nice shape for the hamam sink – the kurna. Traditionally it is a marble basin without any drain that stands on top of the bench and holds the water which is baled out  to soak your body with a smaller bowl.

In our hamam the kurna will be molded into the bench and we decided to decorate it with mosaic too. But which shape shall it have? Today we had 5 shapes to decide from.

I am writing this blog at 2 am at Sao Paolo airport waiting for my flight to Istanbul depart in  2 hours. The mosaic parts are in my two suitcases which are weighing  almost 50kg. Luckily I did not have to pay excess luggage . The check in personnel had a good day.

Its nice to stay awake at such odd hours because I really want to tell  you about this exciting last week.

On Tuesday I set the last stone. Already when finishing the last figure I felt a slight feeling of procrastination. As much as I do want this project to come to completion as much I dread to let it go. Its my life since almost a year.

And I also grouted the wave mosaic with dark grey grout. I actually only had light grey so I mixed some black pigment in it.  I hope it will not harm the quality of the tile grout.

On Wednesday my daughter Louise helped me to tidy up the studio and arrange the mosaics for the show and opening of the studio on Friday.

I decided to show the parts of the AYVALIK MOSAIC to the public for one afternoon. Whilst speaking to people in Brasilia I sensed that there was an interest in the techniques and art of roman mosaics, so I decided to arrange an open house to start making publicity for my work and studio and to give interested people the chance to see and touch a roman style mosaic.

It was an overwhelming success!

The whole 6 hours we had constantly people in the studio and not only one or two. No! often up to ten people looked, touched and asked so many questions that I had a hard time giving attention and responding to all often in 3 languages at the same time. My phantastic daughter was very confident in talking to the visitors as an expert in roman mosaics although she just started to show an interest in this area. I was impressed!

I would never have thought that this topic and style meets so much interest in Brasil.

Saturday the fishes had another photo shoot in the beautiful light of the tropical sun in our garden

off to the photo shoot

before they were wrapped with styrofoam and bubble wrap and packed tightly with my warm cardigans and down jackets into 2 suitcases. Now they are hopefully safe in the belly of the boing 737 and I will lift them off the belt in Istanbul in 14 hours.

All is good! Thanks to all your supportive messages, jokes and calls  the dark forces from last week could not get hold of me!

On Monday morning Robson and I sanded most of the stones in our garden. It is much better to do this very dusty work outside, and in the tropics it is possible to work outside all year round

In the afternoon Cida and I put the trial mosaic onto a wall close to the floor as this will be a similar place for the AYVALIK MOSAIC too.

First we filled the gaps with fine sand, then covered the mosaic with tile cement

then pressed it  onto the pricked and wetted wall

On Wednesday I went to the Vitoria stone fair for one day. Vitoria is a coastal town just 1000 km east from Brasilia, a little bit north of Rio de Janeiro. The amount of beautiful stones was overwhelming and fun to see. Much more vivid colors than in Europe. Especially the blues are amazing. In Vitoria I met with Evren and Turgut from Turanbesikoglu  marble. A delightful reunion.

But – these are all granites, quarzides and semi precious stones – definitely not suitable for roman style mosaic. Only two dealers had lime and sand stones but in limited colors.

Back on Thursday and Friday more background stone setting – with the great help from Leyla.

The background is almost done.

On Friday a big relieve – it worked well! the MDF Board and the paper came off easily after wetting it all for 24 h. No hard residues of the glue and paper, I could clean the interstices easily from the sand with a spray bottle. It is just missing the grout, which color shall I choose? I think I go for dark grey.

Saturday I could just plan for the next week. I have one week left to finish, exhibit and pack the AYVALIK MOSAIC to go back to Turkey again.

For the future I started to make plans to build a tumbling machine. The sanding of every little stone is absolutely crazy and inefficient.