Mosaic Masterpieces Tour

Julie Richey is an award-winning master mosaicist and great friend of this blog. She won the prestigious Orsoni Prize in Venice last year for her dimensional mosaic, Night Shirt.

Night Shirt now hangs in Venice's Orsoni Gallery alongside the other greats from the long history of mosaic as an art form. Julie's based in Dallas and shows her work all over the world. She can still put in a mean floor too.

Well Julie Richey put together something she's calling the Mosaic Masterpieces Tour, an eight-day excursion to explore the art, culture, food and wine of Italy this June. Julie's leading the group and she'll be accompanied by another titan in the world of fine art mosaics, Nancie Mills-Pipgras, the editor of Mosaic Art Now. The group is limited to 15 to make sure that this tour is un-tour-like as possible. This trip's been coordinated through ACIS, the American Council of International Studies. ACIS is the world leader in educational travel. ACIS' superb planning ensures that this trip will be about art and laughter, not missed connections and lackluster meals.

With ACIS taking care of the specifics, Julie and Nancie can be the personable, knowledgeable and good humored people they are. These women are even bigger Italophiles than I am, and that's quite an accomplishment. Travelers on the Mosaic Masterpieces Tour can expect to see masterworks up close and from behind the velvet ropes. They can also expect to experience Italy as Italy and at a pace where it can be savored.

The tour will start on June 9th in Venice. Then it's on to Ravenna, Siena and finally Rome. Ahh, Rome. Julie assures me that Rome's famous Carciofi alla Giudea will be in season when she and her group arrive. Carciofi alla Giudea are an early summer treat, fried artichokes. Their description loses something when it's translated to English, but to eat one is to taste the very essence of the sun-drenched fields that surround the Eternal City.

A tour such as this is an ideal opportunity for design professionals, mosaicists and mosaic aficionados to get a real feel for the history of this ancient art form while at the same time, seeing up close its expression today. From the Orsoni foundry and gallery in Venice to the Byzantine wonders of Ravenna, from the Medieval treasures of Siena to the High Renaissance glories of Rome, it's all here.

If you's like to read about the specifics of this trip, including prices and registration deadlines, you can learn more on Julie's Website, Julie Richey Mosaics. If you're interested in booking, you can e-mail Julie through her website directly.

All photos courtesy of Julie Richey

Change is coming and I need your help

"Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer"

Caspar David Friedrich , 1818

I have big changes and big plans in mind.

I've begun the process of rethinking Kitchen and Residential Design and so far as I'm concerned, everything except for the name is fair game in this reworking. I'm going to move everything over to a new Word Press template and that's going to give me a lot more flexibility so far as how everything is going to look and function. This is a process of course, and I'm not in any great hurry to have all this done tomorrow. I have however set a goal for a re-launch in May.

I want to use this planned change to ratchet up what I do here by a couple of notches and that's where I'd love your feedback. For starters, what's missing? I mean that in the layout sense and in the editorial sense. Is there a function on another blog you like and wouldn't mind sharing? Are there topics I don't touch on or touch on too much? I write this thing as a means of self expression of course, but what keeps me writing it is the feedback I get from you guys. So now's your chance to help me make this a better site. Pretend for a moment that you're running the show. What would you do differently? How can I make this site better? Oh, and unless some angel investor wants to descend, this has to be done on the cheap.

Now about that angel investor...

A new idea in sinks from Blanco

That is a drop-in sink not a flush-mount. It's Blanco's new MicroEdge™ sink and it just won an honorable mention in KB+B's Product Innovator Awards for 2009. Blanco's MicroEdge™ was one of nine products named as a stand out for the year.

Since the advent of undermount sinks ten years ago, nobody's really done anything with drop-in sinks. That was until Blanco took another look at them and decided that the traditional drop-in kitchen sink needed a face lift. So Blanco developed a 1.25mm thick sink rim and called it MicroEdge™.

Drop-ins are usually less expensive to deal with and if you're replacing an existing sink, you options have always been limited to the traditional 17- to 18-gauge stainless steel the rest of the sink was made of. Blanco found a way to make the transition from an 18-gauge stainless bowl to a 1.25mm rim. Pretty slick!

Go to Blanco's website to see their complete collection.


In other departments, Blanco started a company blog recently and it's called Blanco by Design. On it you can find last minute updates on Blanco products as well as items of interest to the kitchen and bath world. To quote from their new site:

BLANCObydesign.com provides a forum for homeowners, kitchen and bath design profesionals, BLANCO representatives and showroom sales associates to exchange information. Here you’ll discover the latest product news, program introductions, support tools, sources of inspiration, design ideas and more.

BLANCObydesign.com will also create a channel to lend your voice to the BLANCO community. Just hit the Comments link to share new ideas, or anything that’s on your mind. Your contributions are the key to making this blog successful for all.

The center tab on Blanco by Design's page is something called the Blanco Design Council. Blanco's Design Council is intended to be a group of professionals who've been brought on board to lend a hand and an ear to Blanco's new undertaking. At the top of that list you'll find yours truly.

So bravo to Blanco on the recognition awarded to MicroEdge™ and three cheers for wading into the world of Social Media.

Tile wallpaper by Trend USA

Who says mosaic tile is only for back splashes and shower floors? Not me. And neither do the folks at Trend USA. Trend has a series called wallpaper tile and within the series are four separate collections. There are hundreds of variations on these themes available and any one of them would be a great idea for an accent wall.

Think about it, why not a 5/8" mosaic tile in glass instead of a coordinated paint color for an accent? Wouldn't it be cool to get pattern into a room from a source where no one ever thinks to look? I say yes, emphatically. Here are some highlights from Trend USA's Wallpaper Collection.

Pretty neat stuff and definitely not what most people will think of when the phrase "tile wall" gets uttered. What do you think? Would you ever use a geometric, floral or damask mosaic pattern in your own home?

Announcing the February release of the 2010 edition of Mosaic Art Now

Mosaic Art Now is an arts annual devoted to the promotion of fine art mosaics. It's also a project very near and dear to my heart. The editors of Mosaic Art Now; Bill Buckingham, Nancie Mills-Pipgras and Michael Welch, recently announced the 15 February shipping date of the much-anticipated 2010 edition of the publication.

The 2010 edition is twice as large as last year's, a feat all but unheard of in the world of print publications. The strength of this year's edition is a testament to both the commitment of MAN's editors, and the depth of worldwide participation and interest in fine art mosaics.

The new issue is filled with feature stories by such luminaries as JoAnn Locktov, Sonia King, Laurel True, Jennifer Blakebrough-Raeburn and some guy named Paul Anater. There's an artists' marketplace, guest commentaries, new discoveries and the truly exceptional Exhibition in Print. The cover art this year is Morning by Ann Gardner and photographed by Lisa Jacoby.

To whet your appetite; Nancie, Bill and Michael have made available Jennifer Blakebrough-Raeburn's Five Sisters: Vitae Summa Brevis as a .pdf for preview. In her article, Jennifer tells the story of Emma Biggs and Michael Collings' installation in York St. Mary's, a deconsecrated medieval church in northern England. Emma Biggs used 13th and 14th century pot shards to create her site-specific mosaics and the effect is as ephemeral as it is inescapably human. Give it a read and know that Jennifer's article is but a taste of wonders that await in 2010's Mosaic Art Now.

You can order a copy of the new publication now and it will ship on the 15th. Shipping is the same for multiple copies, so gang your orders. Last year's issue sits proudly on the end of my coffee table and I'm looking forward to having 2010's issue to sit next to it.

And yes, you read that right a couple paragraphs back. "Some guy named Paul Anater" wrote a feature story for the new issue. It was my great pleasure to meet with and interview Yakov and Yulia Hanansen, two amazing mosaicists who happen to be father and daughter. On a dreary Manhattan Saturday morning, I sat in Yakov Hanansen's studio and we talked for hours about art and life. I ended up learning how to make my own tesserae that day. Yakov sat me at his hardie (a stump with a special chisel fitted into it), handed me a martellina (that's a hammer shaped to make tesserae specifically) and I was on my way.

Talk about a hands-on education. If you've read this blog before, then you know that I am an enthusiastic supporter of fine art mosaics. My involvement with Mosaic Art Now is dream come true in many ways and I am as grateful as I am humbled to be counted as a contributor to this fine publication. Now go buy an issue. Here's the link.