All posts filed under: Blog posts

Trauer nach dem Erdbeben in der Türkei und Syrien

Published by gertrud

I am mourning with the people in Turkey and in Syria about the loss of lives and livelihoods in the region of the earthquake. In 2015 I spent a whole month in the city of Gaziantep learning and working together with Nusret Özdemir, a mosaic master and former security guard of the archeological museum Zeugma where the most beautiful mosaics were discovered in the last century. In his workshop we made the figures of the Ayvalik Mosaic – a project I did in 2015-16 to recreate a whole mosaic floor in ancient technique. During that month I was living in a flat share in Gaziantep with Ayse Ebru Corbaci who is the lead conservationist of the Gaziantep district. I have heard that both are well and their houses are still standing. I haven’t heard about the Zeugma Mosaic Museum in Gaziantep and also the situation at the archeological site. We will get to know about the conditions of these truly magnificent cultural heritage places – first is the care for the people that are insured …

Of checkers, flowers and hummingbirds

Published by gertrud

Yesterday afternoon at the Muzzio mosaic workshop the bell rang. It always rings when one of the 4×8” (1x2m) mosaic boards is finished. Everyone stood in awe around the table. The mosaic depicts symbols of 3 cultures: a brown and black checkered and a green thiestel head for Scotland, blue pastell colored flowers on a white background standing for Sweden and a sparkling humming bird representing the Amah Mutsun culture which were the Indian population that lived here around Watsonville for thousands of years before the Spanish came. The population of Watsonville is characterized by many waves of immigrants that came to work in the agricultural industry since centuries. People from all over the world were drawn to California to make a better living through manual labour on the fields. Now the population of Watsonville is 85% Mexican. From a small exhibition about the history of immigration and agriculture at the Watsonville public library I took this quote: This is a 5 year community art project to decorate the city garage entirely with mosaics featuring …

At the Muzzio

Published by gertrud

Exactly two years ago I spent 3 weeks with the “Watsonville Brillante” Project in Watsonville/CA to learn from them about large scale community art projects. I will report about it at the International Conference of SAMA (Society of American Mosaic Artists) and SGGA (American Glass artist society on September 30 in Buffalo/NY. Read about this internship for which I received a scholarship of SAMA.The Muzzio is the city of Watsonville’s community mosaic workshop. Here every afternoon members of the community drop in and help beautifying their city with mosaic works. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays Highschool Students are coming after school to spend a few hours winding down from busy school day breaking and setting mosaic pieces with their AirPods in their ears. When I arrived on September 6 a Croatian board was being started using very small tiles to depict the stitches of a needle work with the typical pattern from Croatia. On Wednesdays is women’s day at the Muzzio. The atmosphere is more chatty! Together with Helga and Suzanne, two Germans I …