During the weekend of April 11-13, more than a dozen Twinfield staff, parents and students helped to sort, record, and mount the more than 450 “Peace Tiles” that would compose a new mural in the school’s cafeteria. The Peace Tiles – individual collages on 8-inch square wood panel – each responded to the question, “What is my place?” When combined into a mural, they produced single image representing the Central Vermont landscape where they live – a theme selected by the 2008 graduating class.
While the mural represents one of a few large works in the school, there is some concern that students will find the mural a ready target for vandalism. I am not so certain, for two reasons. First is that each student has a piece in the mural: everyone contributed to it, and as a result I would expect that it feels more “owned” by the entire student body. The second reason is that the mural should have some longevity: every student, from pre-K up to the graduating class, contributed to the mural – which means it could be up to 12 years before that bit of school history graduates. In my mind, that’s a pretty lengthy bit of time for a story to circulate. Both aspects of the mural I hope will garner students’ delight and respect for many years to come.
In any event, it was a pleasure to work with everyone at the school, and I certainly learned many good lessons for how to take the Peace Tiles mural project “to scale.”
[In the picture lower right, a Twinfield student places the last tile of the school mural]
Today marks the final day of my work with Twinfield students. All in all it was a lovely experience. The students were so welcoming, and most eager to experiment and “play,” which is a big part of what its all about. I think its fair to say that they are really excited to see what in the world will be done with all of the images. So am I
So now I will begin the long and detail intensive process of cataloguing all of the tiles, and arranging them into the mosaic. Workplan looks something like:
- Photograph tiles
- Work with school to develop “source” image (might be a tile to create a fun micro-macro “find the source” game)
- Create composite image
- Number tiles
- Create directory (so people can find their own, friends’ etc by name
- Install
Something else I have thought of along the way – which hasn’t been approved yet – is to “float” some really elegant quotations about place just off the surface of the mosaic. I am thinking they could be etched (sandblasted) or screened onto the narrow (8″ x 72″ say) plexiglass strips and fastened 3-4″ off of the surface using narrow metal risers – like bolts without the threads. We’ll see how far that goes.
A few weeks ago I was sent an interesting link from my father about an interesting group in Canada that makes large-scale murals from individual fine-art paintings. The results were striking, and got me thinking about the possibilities of using mosaic techniques for Peace Tiles – online as well as using physical Peace Tiles. I followed up the conversation on Ned.com – a social network aimed at collaboration through social enterprise – where a friend pointed me to the work of Jim Bumgardner, the creative mind behind Coverpop.com. And Jim made a Coverpop for Peace Tiles!
Coverpop is an elegant mosaic-maker that draws images from the photosharing site Flickr and, mapping their source over a customized mosaic of thumbnails, enables users to enlarge the view through a dynamic “fly-out” effect. Its a really fun way to organize – and view – a large number of images. Not sure, given the static nature of the background image, whether it will grow as new tile images are added.
To host the Coverpop, Jim provided an xml database file, a flash file, and a background image which are easily saved to a directory. Everything seems to be working flawlessly – thank you Jim! Why not try the Coverpop for yourself?
[Crossposted from peacetiles.net] A few days ago my father introduced me to a mural process employed by the Canadian arts group NOA Productions, which has developed what they call “Mural Mosaics.” They just completed their most recent project for the Town of Cochrane, which engaged nearly 200 area artists in the creation of as many individual paintings, each 12-inches square. When combined, these many paintings composed a single, coherent image – or “mosaic” – which was permanently installed at the Cochrane Ranch House in Alberta, formerly a center for the preservation of Canada’s Western culture.
In addition to the striking coherence of a “Moral Mosaic,” I was struck by the relatively few number of works needed to produce the mural – which is 12 tiles up by 18 tiles across (216). In my experiments – and in most that I’ve seen online – upwards of 400 works of art – typically a photograph – have been needed to compose a single larger work – the primary reason being, as far as I can tell, that a great variety of color and density is needed to achieve a suitable “palette” – or range – that can be combined into an image. I have written to NOA Productions to get more details about how they have approached this work, for example whether artists are asked to work within certain boundaries (eg limit their palette to certain colors).
This technique naturally got me thinking about the possibility of composing similar “mosaics” from the growing number of Peace Tiles being produced around the world. I am thinking that there are at least two benefits to this kind of curatorial process…
Read the full article at peacetiles.net
During a family outing to the lovely town of Sutton in southern Quebec, we happened into the Galerie Farfelu de Sutton. The four of us – Cathleen, Isabel, Wyva and I – trooped into the compact space and browsed around. In a small nook behind the cashier I discovered a “shrine” to the artists Brigite Normandin and was instantly taken in. A painter by training, that is what I saw first: a large painting that had been cut up and “disassembled,” a violent portrayal of the forced displacement visited upon the indigenous peoples of the north as vast oil reserves were discovered in the upper provinces. And then, beneath this alluring and repulsive canvas, “the alter.”
Simple in its presentation, a series of five small “boxes:” black framed assemblages composed with such technical perfection and lustrous presentation. Each measured about 10-inches x 8-inches in the interior, the black frame nearly an inch and a half all the way around. Within the frames a world of play composed of old toys, bits of hardware, tools, scraps of paper and wood along with various odds and ends combined with such compact precision – of line, composition, proportion, tone and texture – to create a tiny symmetrical universe, a vignette from what must be a delightful story.
Sadly, I did not have my journal in hand and so could not take a good set of notes. Instead, this entry will have to serve as a footnote as I seek out more about this modestly priced artist’s outstanding works. Stay tuned!
