The snowy weather kept our numbers low but we had a good time on our road trip to Lumby. We visited the Village Gallery to see our Water pieces on display. The Gallery host said our fibre art show has had a lot of attention, with viewers from Lake Country to Salmon Arm.
Joltz was the Scavenger Hunt. It was endearing to hear the stories that went along with the answers.
Cathy’s ‘Dandelion Tea’ project is coming along beautifully. The Tea bags in show and tell were inspiring as usual.
Presentation on Mosaics by Brigitte. The notes of that presentation follow.
A mosaic is a piece of art or image made from the assembling of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It is often used in decorative art or as interior decoration.
Most mosaics are made of small, flat, roughly square pieces of stone or glass of different colours, known as tesserae. Some, especially floor mosaics, are made of small rounded pieces of stone, and called "pebble mosaics".
Mosaics have a long history, starting in the 3rd millennium BC. Mosaics with patterns and pictures became widespread in classical times, both in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Early Christian basilicas from the 4th century onward were decorated with wall and ceiling mosaics. Mosaic art flourished in the Byzantine Empire from the 6th to 15th centuries. Mosaic fell out of fashion in the Renaissance, though artists like Raphael continued to practice the old technique. Roman and Byzantine influence led Jewish artists to decorate 5th and 6th century synagogues in the Middle East with floor mosaics.
Mosaic was widely used on religious buildings and palaces in early Islamic art, including Islam's first great religious building, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Modern mosaics are made by professional artists, street artists, and today as a popular craft. Many materials other than traditional stone and ceramic tesserae may be employed, including shells, glass and beads.
The earliest known examples of mosaics made of different materials were found at a temple building in Abra, Mesopotamia, and are dated to the second half of 3rd millennium BC. They consist of pieces of colored stones, shells and ivory.
Mythological subjects, or scenes of hunting or other pursuits of the wealthy, were popular as the centerpieces of a larger geometric design, with strongly emphasized borders.
Greek figural mosaics could have been copied or adapted paintings, a far more prestigious art form, and the style was enthusiastically adopted by the Romans so that large floor mosaics enriched the floors of Roman dwellings. Most recorded names of Roman mosaic workers are Greek, suggesting they dominated high quality work across the empire; no doubt most ordinary craftsmen were slaves. Splendid mosaic floors are found in Roman villas across North Africa, in places such as Carthage, and can still be seen in the extensive collection in Bardo Museum in Tunis, Tunisia.
There were two main techniques in Greco-Roman mosaic: tiny tesserae, typically cubes of 4 millimeters or less, and was produced in relatively small panels which were transported to the site glued to some temporary support. The normal technique used larger tesserae, which were laid on site.
The mosaics of the Villa Romana del Casale near Piazza Armerina in Sicily are the largest collection of late Roman mosaics in situ in the world, and are protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built largely in the early 4th century, the mosaics were covered and protected for 700 years by a landslide that occurred in the 12th Century. The most important pieces are the Circus Scene, the 64m long Great Hunting Scene, the Little Hunt, the Labours of Hercules and the famous Bikini Girls, showing women undertaking a range of sporting activities in garments that resemble 20th Century bikinis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic
