CHP finished

A lot of work but a great project. Everyone seemed happy with the final outcome and I was very glad to have it finished.

CHP April 8th

I went shopping today for some supplies and have been cutting and tumbling glass like crazy so that I don't run out. My friend Amy showed me a good way to wind some wire so that the kids can hang their piece when they are done. I went to ACE and the guy was very helpful when I needed to select some adhesive for the wire and tile. I also picked up 2 more bottles of Weldbond, my glue of choice with kids. Personally I prefer to use Mac glue but I think it would be too messy for this project.

Tomorrow is the first mosaic class for the kids. There should be 9 with a few parents too. Friday is the other class. I am putting together some goodie bags so that the kids will have a treat to take home with them. I'm still not sure what will happen with the grouting part. I am going to offer 3 options: I will take it home and grout it myself, I can send them home with the supplies and instructions so that they can grout it themselves or I can have them over to my house when its nice and teach them how to grout. I think it will depend on the parents as to which option the child chooses.

I have so much to do and feel like I am running out of time but I am sure it will be fine!! I really hate to disappoint kids. I think that adults understand much better when things don't go exactly as planned. I have so much more I need to add but I have to get back to prepping the tiles and making & gluing the hangers on.

CHP April 5

The kids tile class is coming up this week. One group of 9 kids will meet on Wednesday and one on Friday. Some of the parents have offered to help so that will be good. I still have to get all the tiles prepped and have been tumbling a lot of glass!! My friend Amy came over last night to help make some way to hang the tiles and I think its going to be really cute.

I will be volunteering at Fine arts night again this year and need a project for the kids to work on so I figured this would be another good opportunity for the kids to be in the design process of a mosaic. I am going to have each group work on a design and then decide on one to make for the 18" x 24" board. I will bring the board to Fine arts night and let the kids there make it. Then I will donate it to where I work for them to hang in the craft room. I work at an adult living facility where we have 6 live in residents with various ailments.

CHP April 2

Today I am going to pick up the colored copies of the artwork that was submitted. My goal is to make a book out of them that I can leave at the Childrens hospital. There were so many wonderful drawings and I think it would be nice for the children in the waiting room to have something cheerful to look at.

I went and picked up the colored copies . I also got a folder and some heavy duty sheet protectors.

CHP March 31

The last day of March!! Spring is coming soon, I hope. I had a coupon for half off printing at a local print shop. I took all the drawings in and am having colored copies made so that I can make a book to leave at the hospital. This way even the kids who didn't get picked will have their drawings looked at. I would love to have them laminated but the print shop wants $1 for each one and I don't have the extra $100 that it will cost so I am planning on getting some heavy duty sheet protectors and putting each drawing into one and then put those into a nice binder.

Next step is to gather the mosaic projects as the artists finish them, get all my supplies together for the kids mosaic class and maybe clean my house.

MAM Mardi Gras Parade

Now that we have an official name for our mosaic group (MAM) I can start keeping track of some of the exhibits we have had and are planning for the future. The first group exhibit was January 7th - February 18, 2007. It was held at the Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan and was organized by Tia Grass. We had a lot of wonderful pieces and even sold a few (Diann & Marilyn). Thanks to Tia for the great job in organizing it. Our next exhibit being planned will be in the fall this year and Sherry is planning that. Who knows what is next for us all?

CHP March 2008

March 2008
I picked up the drawings from the two schools. I had expected maybe 20 or 30, after all we just needed 16 good ones. I ended up receiving 102!!!

I brought them to our March mosaic meeting. It was crazy, everyone trying to narrow their choice down to just one drawing. Some of the artists did abstract art and were not looking for really detailed drawings. This fit really well with the more simple drawings. Some people like a lot of detail in their art and they picked the more detailed drawings. We had a few new people to our meeting and they wanted to make one too so we ended up with 18 pieces total. I had originally planned on one frame for 6 or 8 pieces. I changed it to 2 frames when I thought there were going to be 12 pieces, then 16 pieces. Now with 18 pieces, I am looking at 3 frames.

I had contacted a few places for information on wedi board, which I thought would make a good surface to do individual mosaics on. Kathy at marylandmosaics.com was absolutely wonderful at answering all my questions and supplying us with the boards, all cut to size too. She also recommended some wonderful glass flowers that I used in my individual piece.

I had asked my brother Andrew, to make the original frame. He is an engineer but makes fantastic wood furniture. When I told him it was going to be 3 frames instead of 1 he didn't even question it!! Also, when I had told my mom about Andy making the frame, she said that was pretty neat seeing as he and his twin brother, Matt, had spent the first few months of their lives at that very same hospital. They were preemies and were taken from my mom and tranported to Childrens hospital. She said that she is a true believer that the care they received is the main reason they are still alive today!!

I had originally thought that there would only be 6 or 8 kids and I had planned to have the child artists' mosaic class in my basement. Now with 18 kids there is no way I would have the room so I asked around for suggestions as to places to call. The library by me wanted $25 an hour. The local park wanted $35 an hour plus $15 filing fee. I contacted the Orion Township library and she said that because it was nonprofit and also for the kids that it was free!! Free is for me!! I was able to reserve 2 days with a 2 hour time slot each. Then I had to call all the kids and let them know what days were available. So far it is working out ok. I have 1/2 scheduled for each day as long as no one needs to switch. I typed out a letter to each child with their name and time/date slot and personally addressed the letter to the child themself.

CHP Jan 2008

January 2008

I kept thinking back to my daughters drawings and thought that maybe I could invite other kids to submit drawings too and we would pick one of those to turn into a larger piece. Then I figured that it might be too hard to pick just one so thats when it turned into each artist making their own piece and having them individual yet all in one frame.

I kept going back to the train theme at the hospital and thought that each individual piece could represent a view looking out a window. I contacted the art teacheres two local elementary schools and asked if they would like to be involved. They were very enthusiastic about the project. I ran a contest at the two schools and gave the kids until the end of February to submit an 8" x 10" drawing to their teachers. The theme was "Looking thru a train window" with a little poem:

Riding on the train,

Happy as can be,

Looking out the window,

What do I see?

The winners will have the chance to see their drawing turned into a mosaic and I am also going to be offering a class for each of the winners to make their own small mosaic piece that they can keep.

CHP Nov 2007

November 2007

I began contacting several hospitals by email but only heard back from one, Children's Hospital in Detroit. I really wanted to see what kind of space was available so that I could formulate what size the finished artwork would be so I asked for a tour and was invited by Grace Serra, the Art Advisor. I still wasn't sure just what we were going to do so I dragged a fellow mosaic artist, Theresa Ruby, with me to bounce ideas off of. I knew that I wanted the piece to incorporate a childs point of view since it would be seen by many sick children.

Grace took us on a tour of the hospital and showed us all the artwork that was there already. She also gave us some ideas of what type of group project we might be able to do. When she took us into the pre-op/post-op area, it looked like it needed some cheering up. We started talking about something that might work in there. She mentioned that they were going to be getting a new counter and my mind went to the possibility of us mosaicing the front face of the counter. Grace liked that idea too so I went home to draw up some ideas.

At the November mosaic meeting I brought up my ideas to see what everyone thought and to see what kind of interest there was. There seemed to be quite a bit so I suggested we each do a small piece and incorporate them all together, sort of like a quilt.

Childrens Hospital Oct 2007

The current project I am working on involves a hospital, 2 elementary schools and 18 mosaic artists!! Since the project is already in progress, I am going to write the blog chronologically as I remember events happened.

October 2007

This project started as a simple way to get my daughter, Claudia, interested in what I love to do, making mosaics. She loves to draw so I thought what better way of combining her talents with mine. I had my daughter draw a few pictures and I tried to pick one that I thought would be fun to convert to a mosaic piece.

I belong to a Michigan mosaic group and we had talked about doing some sort of group exhibit. The more I thought of it the more it made me think that others in my group might want to work on a fun project too. I figured maybe 5 or 6 artists and I could work on a piece that would then be donated to a children's hospital.