This was a project was the brainchild of my youngest daughter’s teacher, Stacey Abraham. Stacey, an artist in her own right, had seen some of my mosaic work and asked if I would be interested in working with the kids at our local elementary school on a mosaic with them. Why not?
I came up with the idea of a collaborative mosaic where students would paint on each of the 126 6″x6″ wooden cedar blocks following the colour scheme and rough shape given to them on a sheet of paper. What details they wanted to put in was up to them. This became a project that the school’s art club worked on over a number of months.
A photo I jazzed up that I had taken of the earth as a marble on a leaf served as the basis for the image and the kids were encouraged to create imagery with an environmental theme. There were some great paintings of people and animals all coming together to form the overall image. After they were all done, I took all the pieces home and added many dots and sharpened up the globe to pull it all together. I mounted the cedar blocks with glue and screws to a sheet of pressure treated plywood and Stacey then sealed it all with a protective varnish.
They unvieled it to the school at an assembly where we received thanks for our contributions. It is now on permanent display in their courtyard at McGowan Park Elementary in Kamloops. I have since been asked to do some work with the local street kids school and anticipate doing something with them later this fall.
