All posts filed under: Mosaics around the world

This little town of mine let it shine

Published by gertrud

…. this verse slightly altered from a song I once sang with my choir comes to my mind being around Kathleen Crocetti and her mosaic projects in Watsonville. Her dream is to make Watsonville the Barcelona of California together with the young community of the 50.000 inhabitants of a small agriculture town situated in the fertile back garden of Monterey Bay/California. A lot of nutrition is produced and exported here on large farms with immigrants hands. Strawberries, lettuce, artichokes, apples you name it have been tended to since over 100 years by many groups of immigrant workers. Some stayed. At the moment 85% of Watsonville’s population is of Mexican heritage. Still the average income here is a quarter less than that of near by Santa Cruz/CA. The difference in between pitoresque coast dwellings like Monterey or Carmel and Watsonville is striking on first sight. In the coast cities individual wealth designs beautiful cost homes and inviting shop fronts and brings in enough tax money to make sturdy wooden public walkways with views of the beautiful …

Mosaics of Bergama/Pergamon

Published by gertrud

Many of you know the famous “Pergamon Museum” in Berlin. Where is this place Pergamon? I had the chance to visit the archeological museum of the ancient city Pergamon in Turkey this summer again. 7 years ago during my mosaic conservation studies at the University Ankara I spent one day with the conservation team of Bergama Archeological Project. During that day I was given permission to photograph the mosaics from the masque mosaic floor which originates from 2.c AD. The mosaic is beautifully preserved and presented in the building Z on the Acropolis hill of the Archeological Museum Bergama . It was a joy coming back after all this time. The gallery below is a mix from my recent photos and the photos of 2007. Enjoy!   On our stroll through the ruins one small detail took my attention. I saw a braided pattern in a stone carving on one of the unearthed pieces exhibited which reminded me of a similar pattern in ancient mosaics. Funnily I could find this detail in one of the …

Where Porcelain comes from

Published by gertrud

As part of my residency to explore the interfaces between mosaic and porcelain craft I went on an excursion to Jingdezhen, the birthplace of porcelain. We took the train to ride slow into history. Porcelain production started first time in the world in the area around Jingdezhen in the 11 century. Here the craftsmen first experimented with the special earths found in the area that are needed to fire pure white and often delicately thin vessels. It soon became the highly sought and expensively traded “white gold”. Jingdezhen is a small city in the middle of China. Everyone who has a window to the street sells porcelain or pottery. Even the street lamps are exhibiting porcelain. Unfortunately the historic area with the ancient kilns dating back to the 11 century was under reconstruction. See below. But the large porcelain museum at the city fringe shows a detailed history of porcelain craft on 4 floors.  It was nice to see the craft very much alive and we could lay hands on the pottery wheel feeling the …