No repeats
Every piece is one-of-one. I do not make a good piece twice because I cannot: no two pieces of broken glass are identical, and I do not cheat with molds.
A self-taught mosaic artist born and raised in South Africa, now working out of a small studio in Austin, Texas.
I came to mosaic late, and by accident. I was trying to fix a broken ceramic bowl. I kept going, piece by piece, and when the bowl was whole again it looked nothing like it had before. It looked like the Drakensberg at sunset. That was the first one.
I grew up on the eastern side of South Africa, where the light does something you cannot describe until you have stood in it. Ochre grass, blue morning mist, copper dusk. Those are the colors I come back to.
I was born in South Africa and raised between the coast and the bush. As a child I was surrounded by the animals that now show up again and again in my work: elephants, rhinos, giraffes, the occasional lion. I drew them then. Now I build them out of broken glass.
I did not go to art school. I read books, I watched people who knew more than me, and I broke a lot of tile. I still do. Every mosaic I make starts with a mountain of sharp pieces on a workbench. The skill is not in cutting the tile. It is in seeing which small piece of broken glass belongs exactly where.
I work mostly in stained glass, hand-cut with nippers. For outdoor and pool work I use vitreous glass and unglazed porcelain, both rated for water and sun. The backing depends on the piece: ceramic plates for the Safari Collection, mesh-backed thinset for installations, mortared concrete for poolwork. Everything gets sealed. Everything lasts.
I do not do abstract work for its own sake. Every piece is about something: a place, an animal, a person, a memory. When someone commissions a portrait of a dog they lost, I want the piece to feel like that dog, not just look like them. That is the part I take the longest on.
I live and work in Austin, Texas. The studio is small but the light is good. My husband built me a cutting table. My grown son put a mosaic pool in his house, which is what convinced me to start taking commissions seriously. If you are in town and want to see work in person, email me and we can arrange a visit.
Every piece is one-of-one. I do not make a good piece twice because I cannot: no two pieces of broken glass are identical, and I do not cheat with molds.
I sketch every piece from scratch, including commissions. The pattern is yours. If you want it framed, I will sign and ship it with the finished piece.
I do not outsource the cutting. I do not work with assistants. Every tile in every piece is one I set myself, by hand.
“If I sold you a piece, it is yours alone in the world. That matters to me more than making a lot of them.”Janet Girdwood-Naddell