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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.

Nusret Özdemir at the banks of the river Euphrates looking for suitable rocks for the background of the Ayvalik mosaic. He taught me how to inspect rocks to find out if they are suitable for making tesserae out of it.

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.

from right Nusret, Tahir and me at the Ayvalik Mosaic

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.

Ayse, me and Nusret working on the Ayvalik Mosaic in Nusret’s workshop in Gaziantep

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 and have lost their houses.

Inside the shelter building that protects archeological findings at the Zeugma archeological site.

 

 

Of checkers, flowers and hummingbirds

Published by gertrud

Youth volunteer David putting finishing touches to the Mosaic depicting symbols of the Scottish, Swedish, Amah Mutsun culture  that he mainly crafted

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:

 

Finished Scottish, Swedish, Amah Mutsun Culture board at the Muzzio Mosaic Community Workshop in Watsonville.

This is a 5 year community art project to decorate the city garage entirely with mosaics featuring the cultural roots of the people of Watsonville. Last week I was helping to shape the birds wings 🙂 The Hummingbird in the Amah Mutsun culture stands for the controlled fires they set to their land to promote the growth of seed bearing annuals. The flapping of the wings of the hummingbird resembles the flapping of fans to control fire.

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 am working on the design featuring a Chinese dragon and a Jewish Star symbols for the family of the main private sponsor of the project. How long will it take?

On Sunday I met the Mekiz family of Croatian heritage working on their panel. They submitted the design, sponsored the material and installation costs and now came to spend a creative family afternoon together.

The city of Watsonville has taken on this community arts project about two and a half years ago. They are decorating their City garage (Park Haus) with mosaic!

Art director and manager of this ambitious project is Kathleen Crocetti a middle school arts teacher well known in the area of Santa Cruz and Watsonville for her public art initiatives. Kathleen decided to take on Antonio Gaudi 🙂 and make Watsonville as famous as Barcelona for its mosaics. Her most recent project is to decorate the rather blunt walls of the city garage with mosaic. She is not seeking to get creative here herself, rather she involves community from the design stage onwards.

The first phase of the project was to cover the 4 large areas where the staircases of the buildings are. For this the city called for submissions of designs by local artists. The population had to vote on the designs. 4 woodcuts from Juan Fuentes won.

 

Renowned artist, Juan Fuentes, former Watsonville resident and alumni of Watsonville High School, is honored to have us use his images for this project. We selected four pieces of his work which were enlarged and fabricated into mosaics.

The ribbon like horizontal areas of the building sparked the idea to have the community at large participate in sending designs that symbolize their families cultural roots. In a first call for submissions 90 families sent in their designs. But this would only fill half of the segments given by the expansion lines of the concrete elements. So Kathleen wrote a curriculum for Highschool arts students and her fellow arts teachers happily cooperated. In came 50 more submissions. Many families are of mixed heritage. Like in this board: the checkered pattern represents Schottland, the pastel flowers on white background is Swedish and the Hummingbird a symbol of

“Our project Watsonville Brillante aims to represent multi-ethnic patterns of particular family units on the 185 horizontal portions of the garage’s exterior and place each family’s representation next to another family’s representation in such a way that their common heritages overlap with a shared visual pattern. Combined, they will represent our community as a whole.” (From the project’s website https://communityartsempowerment.org/mosaic-design-process/

To design and craft your family’s and your neighbors cultural symbols as a piece of mosaic art which then will be publicly displayed for centuries at one of the main buildings of your city – this should make the people of Watsonville proud and happy to live here.

And I am happy to be able to experience it not only online! Thank you for Kathleen to be such a thoughtful mentor and to the whole Community Arts and Empowerment Team to have me with you !