Lawn Ornaments: Day 3

Okay, WoW!  I find the greatest places on my walks in the neighborhood.This yard has it all: found objects, statuary,whirlygigs, mosaics, and I think I saw a birdbath in there too. --R

Pothole Mosaics! Thanks Jo!

OMG you must CLICK HERE and see these guerilla artists who are filling potholes with mosaic art. Random acts of art & civil kindness.
I LOVE IT!

Faux Mosaic?

This is a picture of a mosaic that is not real. It is a drawing on the sidewalk. Even the "hole" is drawn.  Isn't that amazing?

Main Entry: ¹mo·sa·ic 

Pronunciation: \mō-ˈzā-ik\

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English musycke, from Medieval Latin musaicum, alteration of Late Latin musivum, from Latin museum, musaeum

Date: 15th century

1 : a surface decoration made by inlaying small pieces of variously colored material to form pictures or patterns; also : the process of making it
2 : a picture or design made in mosaic
3 : something resembling a mosaic <a mosaic of visions and daydreams and memories — Lawrence Shainberg>
4 : an organism or one of its parts composed of cells of more than one genotype
5 : any of numerous virus diseases of plants characterized by diffuse light and dark green or yellow and green mottling of the foliage
6 : a composite map made of photographs taken by an aircraft or spacecraft
7 : the part of a television camera tube consisting of many minute photoelectric particles that convert light to an electric charge

Mosaic Mania

Ok so now I am a little obsessed with Well Done Mosaics cause the bad ones are really bad, no?
... there is a big gap between DIY'ers and Jo Braun. Here's another I found today, in a  more traditional style.....enjoy.
Her name is Youlia

Jo Braun, Mosaic Artist with Studio Ravenna LLC.

I would like to introduce you to Jo Braun with Studio Ravenna llc. 

Describe your perfect client?

My perfect client tells me what her budget is, first thing.  If it's modest, that's fine.  Any art budget is a good art budget.  I just need the numbers.  Then I can noodle the best art-bang for the art-buck.  My perfect client understands that there's only one me, so I can go to a couple meetings but not too many or I'll never get any art made.  My perfect client understands that it's a bad idea to leave the art planning to the very end, and involves me in the process now so we don't have a wrangle with the drywall guys later.  I reward my perfect client by knocking her socks off, and knocking them off ahead of schedule.

What is your passion?

Process and Pattern are my passions.  From the geological churnings that left upheavals all over Wyoming to the attritioning graffiti on a retaining wall in Seattle's Roosevelt neighborhood, I get this dizzying sense of transcendent intelligence.  Related to this is a passion for symbolic systems, like cuneiform and alphabets and numerical notation.  They're impersonal and rule-based in one sense but they also acquire individual idiosyncrasies over time, in the course of their implementation.

Where are you from?

I was born in Mitchell, South Dakota, home of the World's Only Corn Palace.  Then we moved to Sioux Falls where I lived until age 18.  I always assumed South Dakota was "abnormal," and that all the "normal" people were Jewish and lived in New York, like in Are You There, God?  It's Me, Margaret. 

  

What was your favorite job?

I've been blessed with amazing clients and wonderful jobs, but a public art commission for the City of Wenatchee, WA, stands out.  My liaison with the City was an amazing woman named Kris Bassett who knows how to slice away red tape and get art made in the face of government bureaucracies and competing job site politics.  She just retired this year, but many, many public art commissioning government bodies could take tips from Kris. 

Tell us something no one knows about you?
I don't hold much back.  I'll share this though, because lots of people don't believe me when I tell them:  I don't believe I make my art.  I think I'm really a marionette, and Someone Else is calling the shots.  I'll finish something and think, "Wow.  Who made that?"  Some people think the Someone Else is the subconscious mind, and maybe that's true, but really, I think I'm a marionette.  It's humbling, but it also leaves me feeling free to like my own work, because it really isn't "my own."  It's Someone Else's.