Mosaic Moments

We only have one table in the house as our furniture shipment has not arrived yet. But the family needs it for eating, homework, emailing and chatting! So I can impossibly use it for the very dusty work on the AYVALIK MOSAIC.

I need to go to get my own table.

This cries for a trip to the builders market.

Hmmm! Where is the builders market and how do I get there? Google maps would help but how can I talk to the shop assistants ?

I hate to expose myself again to the situation of not being able to communicate with the society I am living in. But what can I do? I will not be able to keep working on the mosaic if I stay in the house.

Martin lends me his driver and off we go in our car. I insist on driving, because I want to practice, and he directs. But, I did not take into account that can not understand what he says, so we end up stopping at every crossroad until I have understood if to go right or left. Awkward!

The builders market is relatively easy to manage because its like an big builders market in Europe. With the help of the driver and the extremely patient and friendly shop assistant I manage to find what I want. On the way back, with a work top and legs in the car, I let him drive to not to get into such an impossible situation again!

So, there is potential that the work on THE AYVALIK MOSAIC can go on in Brazil:  The studio has a table!

The table is set up under the Porch with a lovely view into the garden.

Light is a bit of a problem as it drops pitch dark within 30min after 6pm (we are near the equator). I have bought an extra good work lamp which gives very good light also for seeing color for this situation but it is in our shipment which who knows will arrive. So an ordinary lamp from the builders market will do!

I start enthusiastically but realize that at first I can not work in the evenings as the mosquitoes and termites are disturbing my concentration to much by hovering around the lamp and my head and falling into the glue and on the tesserae, its impossible to work .

… and secondly I have not found somebody that could help me sawing the tree trunk into pieces that readily lys in our garden for installing the hardie. Without the hardy I can not cut the hard limestone from the Euphrates.

Doing all this and arranging my portuguese lessons are tiring me out for this week! At the weekend I am sick!

On Monday evening of Sept 21 I arrive in Brasilia, with a flight directly from Paris where I was together with our eldest daughter who just started to study in Paris.

She had no choice but to come with me and see the part of the mosaic, depicting a scene of the judgement of Paris,  in the Louvre  which was found in the 1930 in Antioch (now Antakya/Turkey) and was split among the parties that sponsored the excavation at that time. Today you can see the parts of the mosaic in 4 different museums in the world:

• the Louvre
• Princton University, Worcester Art Museum and Wellesley College  in the US
• and some small parts of geometric patterns from the edge of the mosaic remained in Antakya Mosaic Museum

I am fascinated by this story in archeological history. There is a great book about this and the mosaic:

The Arts of Antioch: Art Historical and Scientific Approaches to Roman Mosaics and a Catalogue of the Worcester Art Museum Antioch Collection

The book was one of the first book on mosaics I bought and it inspired me in many ways. The essays on the material analysis of the tesserae and grout used in these roman mosaics encouraged me to look for more research on these materials and to continue with my experiments to work with roman cement.

A small footnote mentions a community mosaic which was produced for an exhibition at the Worcester Art Museum in 2000, that brought together the pieces of this mosaic from the different museums .

Reading about this community mosaic inspired me to design and organize the refugee community mosaic in Ankara in January – March 2015.

But back to Brasilia:

On Friday, Sept 25, look what was delivered to our doorstep at Lago Sul in Brasilia! The two boxes from Ayvalik! Everything inside: the background stones, nippers and 2 sets of hammer and hardie. Off to work, Gertrud!

And I really feel that I  and THE MOSAIC have come home! Knowing that this home is not where my family is gives me a crunch in the stomach.

The fish figures that were still wrapped for two weeks are taken out of their bubble wrap blankets and seem to be happy to hear the waves of the aegean sea for the first time.

I arrange my workplace  in the patio in front of Santimetre’s former atelier. In the morning I just have to walk through the garden and down a few steps to be at  work.

Finally I again manage to set up a working routine, especially for the background tesserae as they are placed mainly in line but still have to be put down thoughtfully in order to achieve a good mix of shades of beige.

I can visit THE HOUSE for the mosaic every day and feel completely happy and relaxed. I can go and smoke a cigaret on the roof top of the atelier and see the sea and the sun set. And I have interested friends around that I can talk to about techniques and materials.

Ayvalik sunset

There is Tulya Madra who hosts me and THE MOSAIC. My special thank is to her for showing interest in my mosaic work from the first moment we met and to be so explicit that she likes what I am doing.

Tulya is the crafter and manager of the porcelain workshop SANTIMETRE and makes dishes for everyday use.  I invite you to  watch their website, you will be enchanted!

There is Firat Aykac our architect who helped me not only with the design of the mosaic in photoshop and paper print outs but also made my first tree trunk out of olive wood to hold one important tool – the Hardie!

the olive tree from which the stand for my hardie will be cut

And there is Evrim the stone macon and his partner who come twice to the studio and look at my work and chat about the best way how to get the wall pieces onto the wall.

…. and of course there is Hamdi, who runs a fine small restaurant Argos Ayvalik on the shore of the sea and and is the best address when you are alone and with friends always with the best food, the best music and a good chat until late at night.

After now 6 weeks of working for 10 hours almost every day I do miss a my family

….. and last weekend my husband  comes to visit me and THE MOSAIC!

I am proud to show him my work and life.

But he also brings the message that they can not live any longer without wife and mother so far away in Brazil. So I have to take a decision:

Either living on my own in Ayvalik and finish the mosaic there and at the same time being near the house for the mosaic and observe the building work, with my own friends and contacts in the mosaic world,

or moving  to my family in Brazil, chauffeuring teenagers around and attend receptions and dinner parties again, arranging a large household, learning a new language, finding new friends and mosaic interested persons and keep working on the mosaic —

The decision is: I will move again! with my  design and stones, and hammer and hardie, and nippers — over the Atlantic into the tropics.

On Friday Sept 11 , 50kg of stone material for tesserae and tools are being shipped to Brasilia.

I am leaving Ayvalik with all its lovely supportive people and THE (half finished) MOSAIC  on Sept 14!

In my head  lots of uncertainties:

Will the boxes arrive in Brasilia?

Will I find a tree trunk and somebody to cut it for me to mount the hardie again?

Will I find the glue that I used?

Will the glue hold the stones even in tropical climate during rain season?

Will I find the time and energy to work on the mosaic next to learning to get to know a new place, culture and language?

How will I  bring the mosaic pieces back to Ayvalik ?