Meeting My Mentor, the Early Years Part 1

Me and Sadie with my tiled sunflower planters, 1988

Recently I came across some photos of the first 10 years or so of my art career and over the coming months I’d like to make a series of posts about this period. The few photographs I have will dictate which stories I tell and which I omit, I hope you enjoy seeing this series as much as I enjoy putting it together!

My mosaic career began inadvertently in 1988. At that time and for several years to come I really didn’t have much of an interest in mosaic, after all I already had an all-consuming love affair going on with ceramics! Mosaic seemed kind of interesting in a remote way but not something I envisioned for myself.

Front of Bev's Tile House in Albuquerque, NM. I love those GARDEN LADIES she made and added in the early 1990s in the front of the photo.

What happened though was that during my junior year of college we had a visiting artist Bev Magennis in the Ceramics Department at Scripps College during the fall semester. Bev -although she didn’t know it then - was in the process of establishing herself as a world-class mosaic artist and had spent all of her free time over the last few years tiling the exterior of her house in Albuquerque, NM. This project was recognized later by the Smithsonian as one of the nation’s 10 undiscovered treasures.

Bev and I really hit it off from the beginning. Working at neighboring tables over the course of the many hours, weeks and months spent in the studio gave us the opportunity to talk more casually and frequently than is usually possible for teachers and students. Our age difference of 20 years was significant and I’m sure much more so for her but she was very generous and let me feel like a peer, valued and I really never thought much about my inexperience and youth in her presence.

Bev and me on the scaffolding she used to mosaic the back of her house that summer. We are wearing the funny beaded "ties" we got at the market in Santa Fe.

During her time in Claremont she made some ceramic vessels but primarily focused on making glass mosaic birdbaths for her tile house. I watched her piecing together all of these Smalti (small glass mosaic pieces that are usually opaque) and marveled at her patience. I got the idea that I would like to spend some time working with her in the summer of 1988 although it wasn’t because I had a particular interest in mosaic, but rather because I wanted to spend more time learning from her in general. She became my mentor and sort of a second mother and to this day has remained a very important figure in my life with whom I communicate regularly. Scripps College had a grant program for summer study and I got one of those small stipends to work with Bev for 4 weeks which led to such a fun and memorable summer!

Her “Tile House” project began when she decided to put a little ceramic tile border around the front door of her stucco house. It is New Mexico after all and this aesthetic is fitting. Then a neighbor said, “hey, do you need some more tile, I’ve got some in my basement left over from my remodel?” And pretty soon people from all over the area just kept bringing her tile and her tile border grew into a full pledged art project.

By the summer of 1988 when I came, she had completed the front, the sides and was working on the back of her house. In her home studio she had made some ceramic sunflowers with steel stems set in concrete bases. Tiling these “planters” would be my task for the month of August. (see header photo)

the side of Bev's tile house. This is my favorite part of her incredible mosaic project.

Her first words in teaching me about doing broken tile mosaic were along the lines of - mosaic isn’t for everyone, people seem to either take to it or they don’t. Just see if you like it.

With a few pointers under my belt, a hammer in my hand, I started breaking up tile and formulating some ideas for the sunflower planter mosaics. I did one planter each day. We always began the day very early because we would have to stop mid-afternoon for the regular thunderstorms followed by rainbows.

I liked it! Broken tile mosaic is very different from what I do now, but also shares some basic principles that I still keep in mind today when designing a mosaic. The first two planters came out well and the third (see below) which I was hoping to make into a sort of globe showing North and South America, wasn’t as successful. The well-timed lesson taught me about about the necessity of clearly defined forms and keeping the composition very simple when working with broken tile. I applied this in my approach to the rest of the planters.

At a time when I was much in need of confidence, expanding my medium and having some success with it was important. Although I didn’t make any mosaics again for 4 years or so, a new pathway in my life had opened up which made it possible for me to pursue making my own mosaics years later when I was ready.

What I remember most about that summer was the hot August Albuquerque sun, the smell of the red dirt during the rainstorms, and hours spent at Bev’s dining room table talking and talking and talking. I’m fairly sure she did more listening and I did more of the talking, but she was always gracious so I didn’t notice. I remember my sleeping loft in the tile house, gazing out the tiny window where I got those sweet moments to myself at the start and end of each day, popcorn lunches so we could hurry back outside to do more tiling and the daily walks I took with Bev’s dog Sadie along the irrigation ditches. And of course the New Mexico landscapes. I had never seen anything quite like it and was so moved by the mesas, the palette of the land and watching multiple simultaneous lightening storms over the wide open horizons as we drove out to Acoma or Santa Fe.

A birthday cake Bev and I made for her friend Jim. We had a blast forming the parts from cookie dough!

All in all, I look back and realize how incredibly lucky I was to have met this wonderful woman who opened up my world in so many ways. How incredibly fortunate to have found a mentor who taught me so much about mosaics and ceramics but mostly about how to walk in this world as a artist who celebrates the act of being alive. She was and is a model of an independent spirit living life on her own terms. Artistically - both in ceramics and mosaic - her work continues to inspire joy in me. I’m so grateful to this day for my creative mentor, friend and the mother figure I’ve always needed in my life.

Below is the bedroom wall inside Bev Magennis' Tile House which is all mosaic as well.

[ ]Above she mosaic-ed her living room area with bottle caps she collected while working as a cocktail waitress one summer. Yes, even successful artists have to supplement their income sometimes....hopefully blockchain will make this artist's predicament a thing of the past soon!

This post is part of the Blockchain Memory Project initiated by @ericvancewalton, his post and the rules for participation:
https://steemit.com/story/@ericvancewalton/steemit-blockchain-memory-project-my-journal-episode-1

Stay tuned for Part II soon and later this week a recap of current studio work! Many thanks for your continued support, it makes my creative life possible!