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 …

  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 …

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 …