Mosaic

By Lisa-Marie Sanders

As I continue refining my ideas on how to approach the Integration series, one word keeps coming to mind: mosaic. Individual, small pieces combining to create something completely different. I took a class years ago from a local artist, Derek Gores, famous for his collages using bits of magazine pages. His creations are stunning and the piece I created during his class is one of my favorites of all time.

It’s a portrait of my mom made from tiny scraps of ephemera. One of the things I love is getting close and studying the details of the paper fragments I chose. For example, there is a tiny chicken in her mouth or some architectural plans in her face (she’s an architect). Many of the scraps I chose have relevance to her life; something perhaps visible only to me but imbuing the collage with deep meaning.

My foray into mosaics with fabric came from necessity. I was travelling constantly and didn’t have access to a sewing machine, but I wanted to do something artistic. Every hotel room had an iron, so I decided to make a fusible collage while I was on the road.

I prefused some fabrics and then cut them into randomly sized and shaped pieces. I put the pieces in individual Ziploc bags and took a yard of background fabric on which to play. This “Honu”, Hawaiian for turtle, is the result.

I’m close to choosing mosaic as my technique during the integration series. But who knows what I’ll create. Stay tuned!