Warning – mosaic can be addictive! By Ilona Bryan

Having been invited to write an article for this website, I’ll share how I got “hooked”.

I never thought of trying mosaic, not widely regarded as an art form twenty years ago, and initially declined an offer to attend a short course. As a community artist working with a wide age range of people, many with disabilities, I already covered too many varied activities, and wanted no more. After being told that the course was absolutely free of charge, I found myself pasting glass tiles upside down on brown paper and nipping away with other equally bemused/confused artists. Our tutor was an excellent mosaicist, but I didn’t have much idea of what I was doing as we produced sample panels using an indirect method, and covered theory with note taking.

My personal work in those days was becoming more sculptural, and I had discovered the joys of carving with proper woodcarving tools, so the last thing I wanted was to be messing about with tiling adhesives and snipping tiles. An idle thought occurred. Could broken crockery fragments often found in gardens be used instead of tessarae? I was assured they could, but would need a more direct method of application. Hmmm – was there any way you could make mosaic sculpture? Now my tutor began talking my language, outlining a method using carved polystyrene as a base.

I followed instructions precisely, working like a demon over the next few months. I had to produce work for an international exhibition at Dudley Castle, “Art in Ruins”, Phase 2. In Phase One I had exhibited a small fibreglass woman crawling out from the past. This time I would depict a timeless woman on her way home to care for her family at the end of a hard day in the castle kitchens.

With a block of “new virgin bead” polystyrene, I began carving and shaping. After trying a variety of tools, I found kitchen knives and a surformer worked best. Highly charged polystyrene beads flew everywhere. My studio became a white out zone and I resembled a snow man. It was great fun, and nothing that could not be vacuumed up! Once satisfied with the form, it was sealed with emulsion paint, and covered with wire mesh. I made long wire staples like hairpins to hold it on as tightly as possible. Next it was rendered with mortar, providing a concrete base for mosaic. When the sculpture was finished, apparently I could melt out the polystyrene from below with petrol, leaving a shell to be filled with concrete. That was a step too far, and I have yet to come across anyone who has tried it! I collected unwanted crockery, visiting charity shops, begging from stores for damaged items, and raided a Victorian site where refuse had been used to shore up a canal and crockery pieces worked their way to the surface. It seemed appropriate for my subject which I named “(H)earth Woman”