All posts filed under: Galleries

Owl, owl

Published by gertrud

I am completely enchanted by this little owl, which was carved from rough marble and granite. Actually, I just wanted to try out a new technique and wasn’t at all sure if it would turn out to be anything worth showing off. In this method, the tesserae are first laid out on a template. Next, apply a thick layer of tile adhesive to a second, identical template covered with plastic sheeting. As a result, the adhesive does not bond to the substrate, and once dry, the finished mosaic can be removed as a single piece and transferred to a permanent backing. Since I deliberately wanted to place the tesserae at an angle to suggest the softness and fluffiness of a bird’s plumage, this technique proved to be ideal. The owl’s head came together surprisingly quickly. Then my gaze wandered to my woodpile. The bark of an olive tree from Ayvalık seemed perfectly suited to capturing the structure of the plumage. In addition, there was a cedar shingle, the kind traditionally used in the United States …

Lion’s Head Mosaic

Published by gertrud

The first half of 2026 was a busy and focused time for me. Once the studio in Paris was set up at the end of January, I began work on the lion’s head mosaic. Inspired by a lion depicted in a floor mosaic in Piazza Armenina in Sicily and an exhibition by M.C. Escher in Paris that I had seen in January, I set to work. Fortunately, I have a close friendship with graphic designer Kersten von Sohlern, with whom I have been collaborating since my time in China. She resized the lion’s head so that it would fit four times on my space, and I can still lay it out using the smallest possible tesserae. When designing mosaic patterns, it is important to visualize the size of the material and then arrange the motifs across the surface. This was followed by 45 hours of cutting the tesserae to size and arranging them according to the design. This is my favorite part of making mosaics. The often difficult tinkering of the design phase is over; …

Ukrainian community project 2025

Published by gertrud

On May 15th, in celebration of World Vyshyvanka Day (Vyshyvanka is the Ukrainian word for Embroidery), Ukraine House in Washington, D.C. hosted the grand opening of the Ukrainian Embroidery Mosaic. Unveiled alongside the Ambassador of Ukraine to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, the mosaic stands as a powerful tribute to Ukraine’s rich cultural heritage and deep-rooted tradition of embroidery art in the country. Each embroidery pattern within the mosaic was individually created by a member of the community, designed in the style of regional Ukrainian embroidery to reflect the nation’s diverse artistic traditions. Every pattern was reviewed and approved by an ethnographer from the National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine, ensuring historical and cultural accuracy. The mosaic is geographically arranged—from the Lutsk region in the northwest at the top left, to Crimea in the southeast at the bottom right—forming a visual map of Ukraine through the language of textile art. This intricate work, composed of 25,000 stones and brought to life by more than 30 contributors, is a testament to unity, resilience, and …