Putting the Pieces Together

This activity took a nudge. At a dinner party, the subject came up that I formed a CraftClub. Along the lines of a Book Club, we meet periodically and do a craft project. After the first 2 meetings, I realized I was out of my areas of expertise and starting reaching out for help. And we got it, in spades. This last weekend, Giulia Manzoni and Pippa Murray put on a fabulous mosaic workshop for 10 participants. Friday night was TGIF, wine and cheese, and a visual potpourri of 5,000 years of mosaics. Good inspiration, and a little humbling to see micromosaics and realize we would be trying out the activity for the first time the very next morning.

Saturday, with hammer tapping even with the straight edge of the hardy, tile held gingerly in between the moving metal parts, we broke up tile or marble into really tiny rectangles and trapezoids called tessera. Tweezers holding the tesseras tightly, we scooped a some thinset and set the pieces in place one by one. The thinset engulfed the base like a tooth with a long root, reaching up 2/3 of the sides. Letting that dry overnight, the platters were ready for grout Sunday morning. The artistically adventuresome made their own designs. Those of us concentrating more on learning to make clean cuts and keeping all 10 fingers whole borrowed from Giulia's, generously shared. We were all wowed by each others' works.

 Lesson learned, start small and finish on time...

Debra and others diligently working in silence...