Wine cellar glass mosaic trompe l'oeil

Sketch of landscape and selecting glass for mosaic

Glass selection laid out on cutting table

Grouting the glass mosaic

Grouting process

The hand cut glass pieces forming flowers laid out waiting to be glued in place before grouting.

The finished glass mosaic trompe l'oeil panel installed in the client's wine cellar.

The history of mosaic goes back some 4,000 years or more, with the use of terracotta cones pushed point-first into a background to give decoration. By the eighth century BC, there were pebble pavements, using different coloured stones to create patterns, although these tended to be unstructured decoration. It was the Greeks, in the four centuries BC, who raised the pebble technique to an art form, with precise geometric patterns and detailed scenes of people and animals.

By 200 BC, specially manufactured pieces ("tesserae") were being used to give extra detail and range of colour to the work. Using small tesserae, sometimes only a few millimetres in size, meant that mosaics could imitate paintings. Many of the mosaics preserved at, for example, Pompeii were the work of Greek artists.

This project involved the process of hand cutting the pieces from sheets of hand made colored glass. These were laid out to create a trompe l'oeil landscape view of my client's family home in Europe where the vine yards for the well known Riesling wine are grown. After the work was completed it was installed in their wine cellar giving the impression of brightly lite window with a view from the castle on the hill.

The Necessity of Artifice

SEATS OF MEANING

The Chair
What is our fascination with the chair?
What does the chair signify for us and why do these wonderful objects get so much of
our attention ?

The chiar is an object that has its origins in antiquity and was for hundreds of years
an article of State and of dignity.
Not until the 16th century did they become commonly used in everyday living.
Chairs are wonderful objects expressing the fashions of the day as they inhabit our living spaces giving us a feeling of well being, comfort, and roominess, cushioning and embracing us.

Transforming chairs is a fun process whether it be restoring them to their former glory
or giving them a new look.
This beautiful chair was restored using an old gesso recipe with oil glazes on top, to rid of large dents in
the original painted surface.

If you have a chair you would like restored or transformed into something new, you can contact me at the studio on (206) 779-9152.

Decorative Treatments

Decorative Wall Finishes