The rains finally gave us a window of time to get our mosaic fountain project fully installed the week before last. The install went very smoothly with only two of us. Awesome teamwork and thanks to IMA instructor Tracy Broback for her help during install!
We installed the bottom part one day and the sides and trim the second day and grouted the third day.
The ball on top I had already completed before the holidays.
Grout color was midnight blue (Custom) and we used Kerabond/ Kerolastic (Mapei) thin-set. The inside of the fountain had already been waterproofed before our install. The fountain is situated in a walkway area in Lafayette Mercantile and next to a new restaurant called Yankee Pier. They will evidently eventually have outdoor seating there right next to the fountain. I hope they have mojitos. (Speaking of mojitos, I have a recommendation for a great Cuban restaurant- but that is on my other blog..)
Anyway, it was a good project. Very fishy. Boy do people love an underwater scene. That is probably the theme I have worked with the most (for commissions) over the years. Water. Well who doesn't like water? I might put together a little book of underwater mosaics.
Left: Detail of side fishies and copper lights. Looking forward to seeing it underwater and lit up.Below: Starfish cutting up side. I decided not to continue the background lay patterning from bottom sections to side sections, but it kind of looks like I did. Neat trick.
I can't really figure out how to get these photos to line up like I want (blogging is boggeling) so the rest are:
Full view from walkway above and detail of green fishy with swirling colors - oops where did that go? Oh well. it takes a lot of time to blog and I need to move on to the Project du Jour- which are a set of color drawings for some murals we are going to do downtown Oakland.
Production or installation assistance for this project by Nicole Bertoline, Tracy Broback, Joe Decker and Kim Larson.
***Next time I'll post our Sun Series sculptures in progress in the studio.***
All tile (ok 95%) for above project was high- fire, exterior grade made by McIntyre Tile. Sorry for the commercial, but our retail store, Mosaic Studio Supply (.com) at the Institute of Mosaic Art (.com) reps this line of tile. It is by far my favorite to work with and it has an amazing color range. And they created a purple especially for me that is my favorite color tile. I am using it as a background for one of my next projects.
My dog is bugging me for a walk. Over and out.
