My mother-in-law is an art teacher and twelve years ago I attended her class to learn mosaic and fell in love with two things, my husband and mosaic art!
When we moved to Pompeii in Sao Paulo (Brazil), the city has a major highway that passes through town and many people travel on it. I decided to set up a retail outlet at my home and my professional life began!
I had always done vases and pots so I put some pots on my wall and on the fence in front of my house hoping that would attract the attention of travellers.
This worked and I got many customers who liked my work.
I was asked to write this article about my newest mosaics made with porcelain.
I was tired of doing the same mosaics of vases and wanted to do something new and different. Its hard to branch out into something new when you have customers that like the same thing all the time and you need the money so you almost have to carry on with doing the same things. But I wanted to be innovative and create new things.
About a year ago I put a tray of china on top of the old refrigerator that I have. The fridge vibrates and it was the end of my china but the beginning of new work… the tray fell on the floor and all the china was broken. I felt it was a sin to throw it away and began to examine the pieces, they were so vibrant.
I began to cut with pliers and made the flower petals out of the china and they were in high relief, an effect which I loved. I began to put them in wooden frames that I sourced from demolition sites, they seemed to jump out at me. I had barely hung the pictures on the wall and they were sold, my customers loved them.
I wanted to go out and buy all new porcelain to carry on with this work but that would have been very expensive so I look for seconds when I can that are cheaper and only perhaps have a small defect.
My clients loved the novelty of these porcelain works and I am happy that it has made my customers happy.
All thanks to my old refrigerator!
I have been asked to provide some information on the cutting techniques for the porcelain, so a link to my file on facebook that shows my cutting techniques is available here