Grit

I have a love/love relationship with oysters. I love them fried, baked, raw, plain, dressed up with cheese, on a cracker with Tiger Sauce, and especially freshly shucked and grilled over an open flame by the shore.

I also love oyster shells. I love the organic asymmetry of the shell. The lines, forms, and shapes that inherently appear in nature almost always speak to my soul before that of manmade perfect symmetry, unless it’s in the form of a mandala, another love. And of course, I love an oyster’s little treasured gift, the pearl.  The fact that a beautiful pearl originates from a tiny, unwanted piece of grit is fascinating. Again, I like misshapen, organic pearls the most.  Keshi, blister, stick, and coin pearls are preferred over the perfectly rounded pearls of your grandmother’s tightly strung necklace.

Through the years, I’ve also created my share of oyster crafts-an oyster Christmas tree, jewelry dishes, napkin rings, ornaments, and jewelry. You can also find a few oysters in my woven art panels.

Last Christmas my daughter asked me to paint a watercolor of an oyster for her. I don’t claim to be a painter, but she was pleased with the gift. 

That watercolor, along with a gluttonous afternoon stuffing my face at the Fort Morgan Oyster Fest here in Alabama, inspired me to create my latest mosaic project: Grit, a 22" x 30" 3-D wall hanging of an oyster. You can scroll to the end of this post to watch a quick time lapse of this mosaic coming together, or if you are a mosaic nerd, you can stick with me for the step-by-step process. ​

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1. I wanted the oyster to sit upon a background and I chose to use Wedi board, a lightweight foam substrate. I installed Wedi hanging hardware to this background substrate. This step must be done first to ensure the piece can hang.

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Then, I added a skimcoat of thinset over the entire background and fingerpainted some watermarkings into the ”sand.”

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I drew out a rough shape of an oyster on paper, cut it out, and traced it onto another piece of foam board. My plan was to graduate each layer, so I repeated this process three times, with each layer slightly smaller than the previous one as it stacked downward. I then adhered these pieces to each other using a combination of thinset and Weldbond. 

​Next, I carved out an indentation with an assortment of blades, mimicking the scoop that exists in many oysters. This process was a mess and I initially questioned whether I had made the right call.

I then installed more Wedi hardware in two places on the front side of the sculpture before affixing two more washers to the backside of the substrate. This was only after trips to numerous hardware stores to find a screw that was both long enough to go through the entire oyster and background, and the fit correct diameter for the Wedi hardware.  

I used Apoxie Sculpt to add some dimensional scalloped edges and to smooth out the indentation, followed by another skimcoat of thinset over the entire outer surface, and carved some details into the "hinge" portion.

1. Finally, she was ready for some mosaic bling.

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I used hand cut stained glass, which in this instance meant I started with sheets of stained glass and then manipulated them into the tiny tesserae. With the palette in my watercolor serving as inspiration, I chose to use more blues as opposed to purples.  I added some sparkle with just a smattering of iridescent glass.
My cutting technique was an adaptation of one I learned in a workshop with the amazing mosaicist Yulia Hanassen.(<< Click on that link. She creates wonderful work). This cut lends itself to the curvature of an oyster, far better than that of traditionally square tesserae.

Though this piece involved a tremendous amount of planning and cutting, once I started adhering, it came together fairly quickly. I was indecisive about what to do with the background, so I left that for last, but finally opted to render water with two different sizes of tempered glass. These shoreline waves were enhanced by a “foam” composed of tiny glass beads, shells, and just a few sparkly crystals.

After I finished with the tesserae, I tinted the color of the sand numerous times to try to replicate the look of wet sand surrounding the oyster, and then added a sheen to some parts with Weldbond.

Below is a video of the piece coming together, followed by a few of my favorite closeups.

Oh, and lastly there is a poem, (insert eyeroll). Many of my mosaics have an accompanying poem.  Some mosaics were inspired by my poetry and others lent themselves to verbiage. This is the latter. Zzzzzzzzzzzz   Ooops, I accidently just hit the “z” while typing.  I think I may leave it in here for some of you. Kind of appropriate at this point in this rather lengthy post, and serves as foreshadowing for the dark poem below…
 
What the Shuck? 
 
I am the irritant
Trapped inside myself
Slowly transforming
Layer by layer
Well-worn, marred
On the outside
Pry me open
Uncover nothingness
Or perhaps a tiny pearl
Hidden within the gelatinous mess of my mind,
Unhinged.
 
 

Did you make it to the end? Did you roll your eyes? Are you still awake?
​P.S. I'm in a good place, I just like to write poetry that's on the darker side.

Thanks for stopping by,