New Views: Mosaic Light Paintings

Here are a collection of photos from my show and sale last Saturday, the17th of June, in Santa Rosa, CA, at the home of my friends Maggie and Peter Schmidt.

These pieces were created over the last two weeks in the garage of my friends Mark and Janet Scheuer who live in San Francisco’s Lower Haight. Its been over twenty years that I have been making art in, and for, the home of my friends Mark and Janet Scheuer, who gave me my first residential commission, and with whom I have enjoyed a rich and inspired creative relationship over these years. I am forever grateful for the space, physical as well as emotional, creative, and mental, that Mark and Janet share so generously and graciously with me.

Its also been twenty years that I have known Maggie and Pete Schmidt, who so enthusiastically opened their home to me for this show. Maggie has been a constant fan, supporter, and creative co-conspirator since I began my career making and selling mosaic objects via the San Francisco Gift Fair. At one point, she sponsored my trip to a ceramics factory in Hungary where I designed dinnerware for her ceramic import business. It’s with great pleasure that I extend a hearty “Thank You” to Maggie and Pete for the tremendous opportunity to share my work with their friends and neighbors in Santa Rosa. What a great reception from the Oakmont community!! I look forward to returning to visit and create art in this vibrant place.

This is a very exciting collection of new works featuring mosaics on recycled windows. To create these works, I first painted on the glass. After this was dry, I applied glass mosaic pieces to the painted surface, and later grouted the whole thing, completing it. This is very tricky process, one that requires a good bit of faith in the process, and the ability to accept unforeseen effects and allow the "painting" to take on various forms as it evolves into being.

This show has inspired what is for me perhaps the most important advance in my career as an artist to date. Combining the mosaic and painting techniques in a series of glass mosaic “light paintings” has resulted in some stunning surprises that I am certain you will enjoy. The process of creating these works has been filled with the surprising delights of discovering how differently paint is worked on the glass, as well as the effects of light on the finished pieces. Each side of the finished piece is a unique work of art.

I have chosen to name each of the mosaic light paintings after an Impressionist painter. This is to honor their work, and their influence on my own art work, without which I certainly would not have been able to create these works. The Impressionists own interest in capturing the effects of light I now understand and appreciate more fully through my own exploration. I feel them inside me, watching and creating with me, discovering the magic, and surprises, of gesture, light, and the dappling of colors.

I will be showing these and other works again Saturday, June 24, in Berkeley, CA from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the home of my friends Nick Cihak and Dan Woodland, 2933 Martin Luther King Jr. Way.