Mosaic Moments

This week I lost my inner calm! Given that I have only 2 weeks left until the departure to Turkey I got the panic about finishing the background and making a trial wall installation which I am most worried about as I haven’t put a mosaic onto a wall yet. My neck is so tense and my eyes can not see well anymore.  I really need support!

It also was unfortunate that in this moment my family was away and I felt so lonely and scared at night. Consequently I slept bad which contributed to the tension during the day.  Brasil still is foreign for me. Speaking Portuguese needs a lot of concentration for my brain. I visited a turkish colleague of my husband on Thursday who’s father, an apricot specialist and dealer from Izmir, was around. Trying to speak Turkish with him was a nightmare. So frustrating. I am lost in all these languages!

But enough of laments. What happened this week?

My dear neighbor and mosaic artist Cida helped herself and recruited a friend to help too.

They are busy artists with their own projects and still afforded each half a day to put tesserae next to tesserae in lines! The gardener who agreed to help sanding the marble unfortunately got sick.

But the most work is the sanding of the marble that has shattered edges! I do this with a small electric tool which has a rotating sanding disc. For dying of cancer from a dusty lung  and preventing little splinters flying into my eyes I look like this! Very comfortable in 30 + degree!

Whilst Cida and Leyla were working on the background I occupied myself with glueing the long fish parts onto 3 mm MDF board, using water soluble glue again as it all is supposed to come off after the mosaic is in the cement.

This is the north wall mosaic in total of 210 cm length and 40 cm hight.

All the white and light yellow parts still need to be covered with background tesserae.

What is my next worry? Which cement shall I use? So far I only used roman cement which I made myself and Kalekim (a turkish brand for tile cements) for the refugee mosaics. But for a natural stone mosaic in a bathroom?

As a bad surprise (and it actually created absolute panic) I realized that after the architects original plan the mosaic is too long. The last 12 cm of the long fish tail would not be on the wall anymore! Unfortunately I had a communication problem with our architect in Ayvalik and could not get the actual wall maeasured. So I had to take the decision to cut some background in between the dolphine and the long fish mouth.

It looks quite cute now, doesn’t it? as if they are kissing. (Fitting the topic of today – Valentines Day)

Further I made a little wave border as a trial piece for putting the tesserae directly onto the wall without any mesh. On Monday  Cida and Leyla will help me installing it on a wall in my studio.

It actually took great joy drawing the wave pattern. And my memories of the mosaic restoration class from one year ago, where we had to draw several mosaics, got refreshed. Its satisfying to see what one has learned. I try to draw with minimal helplines as I want my hand to feel the flow. I believe this will later help the hand setting the tesserae.

I chose marble for the tesserae, but different colors in order not to waist any material for the actual mosaic. When laying the tesserae it was great to understand how the lines are filled with tesserae. I am sure that these old masters could lay the pattern directly into the cement with only maybe two helplines. When you do about 50 meter of it your hand and eye should know how it goes. I wish I could do it. However also my 30 cm of border has brought me a small insight in how to put the tesserae down.

The wave pattern is actually one of the border patterns in the original mosaic from Zeugma. This photo served as my guide.

As this blog serves  as documentation of this project and my learning diary, what ist the learning of this week:

RELAX! I can not pull things through at all cost. A team of 3 people committed to work for the whole duration of the project would be ideal, but the importance is that the team feels ownership over the project.

Be realistic about time. This mosaic making is a slow affair!

I want to conclude today with a piece of music that I listend to this week and I really love. Carinhoso, which means  loving  and caring in Portuguese. (click on the word Carinhoso it has the link)

There it is – the last fish figure for the AYVALIK MOSAIC.

I almost procrastinated its finalization. These figures have been living with me for almost a year now. Every day I looked at them, checked the original photo against my copy, looked closely at single areas again and again, especially the fins. I always underestimated these little things. Yesterday it took me a whole day to put them and the contour line around the whole figure. I worked for eight hours solid until my eyes would not see and my fingers could not grip the little tesserae anymore.

These mosaics are lines that interact with each other in shape and color. Beautifully crafted lines and carefully chosen colors and their contrast to each other are making these figures look so amiable and pleasant.

Now the work is more mechanical, setting the background  tesserae and finally installing the mosaic. I am very nervous about the latter as I have not done it in such a scale before.

I don’t know how on earth these people 2000 years ago could manage to put mosaic floors of more then 20m2 down. They must have had an army of workers cutting stone and laying them!

Next weeks I will hopefully have 2 helpers for the background so that I can  concentrate on making little trial tiles to practice putting mosaic on a  wall.

Any advise from more experienced mosaic crafters are welcome! Please use the comments section or contact me on the website.

But now its carnival in Brasil!

I am looking forward to relax my tired eyes in the colorful costumes,

my stiff neck  in the  rhythms of the different bands

and my far to tense mind in the company of  people that just want to have fun for 4 days.

(For my German speaking readers, that are interested in the refugee crisis, please find this letter with a report about the situation in Lesbos in pressing on the link)

The second week in the studio went fast with lots of progress.

Dolphin’s head finished with the contour line. This is one line around the figure in background color. It helps to emphasize the figure. This technique can be found in greek and roman mosaics.

When looking at the dolphins head I am so amused that it looks so Disney like! Did Disney maybe had a look at these mosaics before he created his figures?

I started with the last figure – a long, mainly gray fish with vigilant eyes. Nusret Bey taught me to make the eyes first, to give the figures a soul at the beginning.

And I glued the Dolphin and parts of his tail fin onto MDF board. In the picture you can see it with weights from boxes full of marble. On Monday it should be ready for the background tesserae to be put on.

It has been very cold in Turkey and in Ayvalik too the past week so building work had to rest for a while.

This lets me think of the situation of Syrian refugees of which the majority lives in Turkey. Ayvalik and its surroundings play a role in the faith of refugees. From there a lot of men, women and children leave in small boats or dinghies for the greek island of Lesbos which is only 2h boat ride away over the sea. The photo I posted already last week is  the view from Ayvalik’s waterfront over to Lesbos.

The mountain range in the far background are the mountains of Lesbos

When the sea is calm like this the boats might succeed. But imagine in storm or at the freezing temperatures of the past week ….

A dinghy with refugees and migrants onboard is illuminated by a rainbow as it makes its way on the Aegean sea from the Turkey’s coast to the Greek island of Lesbos, on Saturday, Nov. 28, 2015. About 5,000 migrants are reaching Europe each day along the so-called Balkan migrant route, stoking tensions among the countries along the migrant corridor including Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.(AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

When we visited Ayvalik, in the 4 days we spent in the small town, public life of Ayvalik would not hint anything about refugees in the city and their  dramatic situations.

Only  in speaking to some shopkeepers we heard empathetic remarks about the misery of the whole situation of the refugees.

Meanwhile the Turkish government has issued a general work permit for Syrian refugees and the permission for employers to employ up to ten Syrian immigrants in their businesses.

We will see if this regulation might reduce the numbers of people risking their lives for a better future on a boat ride between Ayvalik area and Lesbos.