Mosaic Making

Creation of “River Time!”

a mosaic mural in the Sierra Foothills

Over Labor Day weekend 2012, I co-coordinated the creation of a collaborative mosaic mural at Yuba Libre, a community land project on 22 acres of beautiful, undeveloped land near a wild stretch of the South Yuba River. I have been part of this inspiring community of Northern California artists, activists, and ecologists since 2011. I also have several years under my belt assisting in and project managing the creation of public murals in San Francisco with the magnificent muralist and illustrator Mona Caron.

None of this mosaic project would have happened without the vision and organization of Ross Holzman, my co-coordinator, and Matt Berry and his team, natural builders extraordinaires who guided us along the way with their expertise and skill!

This summer, Yuba Libre has been enhanced by the construction of a strawbale and cob bathhouse with stone foundation and a french drain system.  Over several months, many of us who spend some of our holiday weekends in the mountains and on the Yuba River participated in creating the walls to the bathhouse on many levels: harvesting the beautiful rich red clay just yards from the structure, mixing the straw with wet clay, tamping the straw down within form boards to create the walls, placing bottles and mason jars in the walls for design and function, and more. We learned a bunch (a bale??) about this permacultural natural building form, got dirty, and had tons of fun doing it!

While they were finishing up the largest wall one weekend, Ross had the idea of putting a mosaic on the wall. He put the call out to the community via a listserv and, having worked on the wall, loving mosaics, and already inspired by some design, I quickly got myself involved. Here is a look at the process.