Author: gertrud

Mosaics in Rio de Janeiro

Published by gertrud

If thinking of Rio de Janeiro mosaic is not what comes up your mind first. Its the sugar loaf or the Corcovado that are the images of this extraordinairy city.   If you think of Rio you have these views in mind: Maybe some of you  which have been to Rio might have gone up or down the famous stairs that connect the district of Lappa with Santa Theresa. The stairs were decorated with tiles over many years by a chilenean artist who sold postcards to be able to buy more tiles and got so famous that tourists from all over the world sent him tiles typical of their countries or depicting their home town which he then incorporated in the decoration of the stairs. We even found a tile from the city my father was born in “Erfurt” in eastern Germany. But I wanted to see more mosaics in Rio. Through a friend in Brasilia I got the contact of Moema Branquinho who lives and works as a mosaic artist in Rio. Asking if I …

THE AYVALIK MOSAIC

Published by gertrud

The Ayvalik Mosaic – grouted and ready to be used! The aim of this project was to decorate a room in a restored greek townhouse in Ayvalik at the norther aegean  coast of Turkey with a mosaic. This newly build multi purpose bath room which is accessible from the garden and from the house has features of a turkish bath/hamam: a heated floor, heated marble benches and walls but also serves as a water play area of the patio in summer and a second shower room for the 6 bed holiday house. Fascinated by the beauty of antik mosaics I wanted to recreate some of the decorative elements of an antik mosaic to appear in our modern life today again. And I wanted to give this mosaic the purposes that mosaics  originally were created for: a practical purpose of covering a floor to be better walked on, water to be better drained from the floor into a drain system and the floor to be better cleaned, a decorative purpose to add color and designs to …

THE AYVALIK MOSAIC – finally in Ayvalik fifth week

Published by gertrud

And there they came…. ready for the magic moment of uncovering the floor pieces! these figures were produced in August in Gaziantep and had been stuck on canvas since then. It was much harder to get the glue off then on the wall pieces. But with the enthusiasm and strength of 3 teenagers and a lot of very hot water and hard brushes we managed to remove all the glue within 2 hours. I was absolutely stunned how beautiful these figures came out. Almost all tesserae stuck in the cement. There were only a few single stones that were loose. As you can see in the following pictures in the area of the figures where tesserae have been joined tightly together the cement did not get up to the surface. Whilst in the background area, where the spaces between the tesserae was left deliberately larger it mattered how much sand I applied for the cement to squeeze all the way up or to stay down and keep a grout line open. I was afraid the …