Selep Imaging Blog: September 2020

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Mosaic Garden Stepping Stone

Mosaic Garden Stepping Stone

Mosaics are an attempt to make something beautiful out of the broken pieces of something else. Maybe that's why I am avidly pursing mosaics at this time. It's a metaphor. Does anyone else out there want to create some loveliness in spite of the mess they around them?

Mosaic Stepping Stone Close up

I made this project about a year ago as a sort of memorial to an exquisite plate I had just purchased at an antique show that was NOT destined for mosaics AT ALL.

The plate broke as I was washing it. :(

I SO wish I had been more careful.

Mosaic Stepping Stone Detail

The plate was an art nouveau style plate, entirely hand painted (I think) on a white background. The design featured stylized pink flowers, fern-like greenery, and lots of gold swirls and embellishments, and a thick gold edge on the scalloped rim. Everything about the plate was lovely.

The plate is vaguely the circle with the white background.

Mosaic Stepping Stone Center Detail

I tried to "preserve" the plate in this stepping stone. But the plate was far more elegant, with the fern fronds connecting in an elegant pattern, not laid out in my frankly clumsy layout.

Clumsy layout? - There were 5 flowers evenly spaced on the plate, and I used a 6 sided hexagon stepping stone. The stepping stone was too small to allow the plate to fit in, so I squished the five flowers in and had to get rid of portions of the original design. Also I didn't really manage to center the white circle, and the yellow center is a strange shape. I used the hexagon because that's what I had access to, but that is an excuse - I could have waited and poured or bought a larger round.

Mosaic Stepping Side view

So why share this mini-disaster at all? I'm sharing it for several reasons.

Reason 1 - It cheers me when I look at it. Despite it's many problems, when I see it as I'm letting the dog out, or bringing the groceries in, I see the lovely colors, the flowers and a bit of a sparkle, and even on a dreary day it looks bright.

Reason 2 - Of the stepping stones I've made, this one is my favorite. I don't even let it get rained on, (or stepped on!). The stepping stone stays under the eave on my front entryway landing.

Reason 3 - The results allow me to enjoy the present as opposed to forgetting or dwelling on the past.
Making lemons into lemonade, so to speak.

Reason 4 - I think beginners can be encouraged when they see results that are less then perfect. Unless you look at it (or photograph it) from straight overhead you don't realize the magnitude of the clumsy layout, or that symmetry wasn't achieved. Or perhaps, I ended up liking my own creations better because of the effort and time I spent on it. I wouldn't buy this stepping stone had someone else created it, but I cherish my result.

Reason 5 - I am getting better at mosaics, and I enjoy documenting the progress.

Mosaic Stepping Stone Edge Detail

The stepping stone was the first project I used the green border on. The second project is a table (edge detail below) that I shared here.

Mosaic Garden Table Edge Detail

And on to the real world - Wow. I feel horrible for those in California and the West Coast affected by fires. So many houses destroyed in some of the photos I've seen. Down South has people affected by hurricanes and flooding. The entire country is reeling from the impact of the pandemic, even if they don't know anyone who has had it. Two of my college students have had their college experience impacted - I'm grateful they had multiple years of normal college before this. Jobs have been affected in my family. Family and friends have had riot experiences. Life is not normal. Should we even be trying to post normal life posts? Is it ignoring the pain to post something trivial?

I think people want to get back to jobs, colleges, schools, churches, etc. and to experience some portion of the "normal" that has been missing this year. I know I want to. So I am posting a possibly trivial post to focus a little less on the many negative things going on, and to carve out a tiny area of "normal" in these strange times. But I guess I feel I have to explain that I'm aware, I care, and I'm typing this at midnight because I'm not sleeping particularly great anyway, and because I enjoy the many other posts on the more trivial but more normal experiences that I find in the blog parties and blogging world I follow. Go fellow bloggers go!

There is something therapeutic about combining the shattered pieces available to you and seeing something lovely emerge. Make something beautiful out of the world around you, if you can. And if you can't at the moment, I pray that you will find yourself in better circumstances soon.

Stay sane and healthy,

and do what you can to help others!

I hope you and yours are healthy and well.

Click on the images to see them enlarged.

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