Society for American Mosaic Artists (SAMA)

I'm back from a whirlwind visit to San Diego where I attended the SAMA conference. The two workshops I took were "Ready (thin)set- go! where we learned all about thinset and grout- and the other was a fundamentals class taught by the Chicago Mosaic school. I participated for a little bit in the ongoing "mosaic marathon ". There was so much to see and learn- great speakers- and met some wonderful folks. I learned that "andemento" isn't  something you put in salads! and "tesserae" is pronounced "terresah". Thinset can be a sculptural medium as well as an adhesive was another lighbulb moment.
There was  amazing mosaic art and the Hyatt at Mission Bay was great. Here are a few pictures.

This shows how tessarae can be layed out. Andamenti!

Here are demos by Canadian artist  Erin Pankratz. She created substrate with mesh and thinset and uses cement tints for the colors. 

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This is one of her pieces. She uses the thinset to create lots of layered dots

to then hold the tesserae. Talk about cake decorating! Yummy!

                                 Here is some work by Kelley Knickerbocker. She mostly uses black and                              white thinset and also creates her own substrates.

The white thinset under there translucent green bowl shards create a glow with the black thinset  all around it.

I think this one is sideways...the black thinset created a soft velvety background.

Here is the design for the mosaic marathon- all conference participants were welcome to sit down and work on this for 4 days of the conference. St. Madeleine Sophie's Center is a center for adults with disabilities. They created fused glass tiles that were incorporated into the mosaic. 

The letters were cut from blue tile with a jet spray laser type cutter. There was a lot of different types of tessera- plates, tiles, Mexican smalti glass, glass and even fun ceramic salt and pepper shakers. Because this is going to be outside a building in Southern California they don't have to worry about some of the pieces freezing and cracking.

The tesserae was attached with thinset that we piped through baggies with the corner cut off. We attached on to WEDI board- a foam cement board thats perfect for mosaics- very light and weatherproof.

here is a part of the panel grouted with black grout- they are cleaning off the haze.

some parts were done on mesh...

Then we saw the Mosaics International Exhibit at the Women's Museum of California in San Diego- Wowza!

                                                     This one won best in show, Micro stained glass tesserae.

detail-

                                                           Here are some of my faves....

This one was ridiculously detailed! Incredible!

These are faces on rocks!

mixed media...

                                                       this one looks like it was knitted...

                                                                  detail...

                                                                      found objects...

                                                                      sea creatures!

It was definitely worth every penny!

More about the rest of the trip coming soon- we saw a lot more mosaics and art!