All posts filed under: Mosaics around the world

Islamic Geometric Patterns

Since we were living in Uzbekistan from 2004-2006 I am fascinated by the lines that create the geometric patterns in the tiles of ancient islamic art on the mosques and schools. In January this year I visited Samarqand and Buchara again. The trip started with some snow flakes, but then the weather evolved into a beautiful blue spring sky. About Islamic Patterns: “Islamic decoration makes great use of geometric shapes, which have developed over centuries. These patterns of Islamic art are often said to arise from the Islamic view of the world, which is the central concept of Tawhid, or Divine Unity. To Muslims these forms, taken together, constitute an infinite pattern that extends beyond the visible material world. They concretely symbolize uncentralized nature of the creation of Allah and therefore in their use of patterns, Islamic artists are in part expressing the fathomless of Got – not just that God is everywhere, but that God is unknowable. In this sense, pattern can be used as a meditative tool.” source: Backhouse, Tim”Only God is Perfect”. …

Mosaic Tour in HongKong

Last weekend I visited Hongkong. In preparation for my trip I researched “Mosaic artists in Hongkong” – and Karen Pow appeared on my screen. After being disappointed that she wouldn’t be in Hongkong when I was there, I was over the moon when she provided me with the detailed locations of her public mosaics all over town – my plan took shape to go on a mosaic tour through Hongkong. I was even more excited when Karin Moorhouse an Australian travel- and food writer who lives in Hongkong for most of her adult life, agreed to join me and even better suggested, as an insider, to work out the route. So we met on a fine morning of January 13, 2020 at the Tsim Sha Tsui Star Ferry terminal to go on this adventure. In the evening of that day over a beer she drew me a line on the map where we went – to my surprise we had circled both main islands Hongkong and Kowloon – seeing great mosaic murals – and touched …

All in Stone

At the end of November I was in Chongqing for the annual meeting and exhibition of the View Stone Association of China. A view stone or appreciation stone is a stone in which one sees an image or design. At the annual meeting a couple of hundred people from all over China got together to appreciate their stones. I was absolutely fascinated by the different images that people see in these stones. Landscapes … Animals… Numbers and letters .. Food …. People …. The rule is to just find these stones – no alterations by human hand except cleaning. During the conference I was invited to talk about natural stone mosaics. Paloma Sanchez – Gemologist and jewellery designer in Beijing, who invited me to this conference and exhibition spoke about using natural stone in modern jewellery design. We both enjoyed the trip very much. It brought us in contact with deep China. For me it was fascination with the contemplative art of appreciation of nature and an inspiration to pick up stones now and then …