One of the joys of being an artist in any medium is that of getting to know other artists. Artists speak a special language and all seem to understand the mysteries and challenges of having a creative nature. One artist I know lives in northern California, in the college town of Chico - the home of Chico State University, and quite a home for the arts. Besides being a musician, Kim Finlan is also a mosaic artist. Recently I invited Kim to share with me some thoughts:
Kim: I was inspired
when I saw what my Dad's wife, who is a mosaic artist, was making. She taught me
the basics and then I tried it and it sort of just came out of me - like it was in
there all along. I love problem-solving and I am also artistic, so mosaic meets
both of those elements. When I chip stained glass or dishes, the pieces I get are individuals - there are no two exactly alike. So when I put the pieces together to
create what I have in my head, it is something like putting a puzzle together. I
also like that each item I make is completely unique and will never have a twin.
Q: Why did you choose stained glass and china as your main mosaic media?
Kim: I think stained glass is beautiful - it is
like paint. You can get pretty much whatever color you want in stained glass and
you can also get stained glass with some neat effects like metallic or swirled.
Stained glass is easy to break with my nippers and I find I can manipulate the
glass nicely. I use china less than stained glass because it is more limiting
(at least in the way I do it). I like to buy dishes from thrift stores and yard
sales and then chip those up and use them. I mainly use chipped-up dishes for
lettering and borders (see "Sing.." sign), but I have found other uses too. I don't use stoneware because it sort of crumbles when chipped. So only certain kinds of ceramic are really usable. Sometimes I'll
buy a dish I really like the pattern on, but then I'll get it home, put my
nippers to it and it won't break at all in the way I want it to; or it'll just
crumble. But I'm getting to know which dishes will work and which won't when I'm
at the thrift store.
Q: How would you describe your mosaic style? Your design style?
Kim: My mosaic style is clean. My mosaic patterns are random but they create a picture. I am still new at this and so I have only dabbled in how things flow and with dimensionality. So far my work is mainly 2-dimensional - but all about color and color-coordination. I really enjoy finding patterns and colors that go together.
Q: What inspires the designs for your work?
Kim: I have two kinds of
work that I do: functional and fine art. I consider my "functional" pieces to be art
as well, but I don't take as much risk with those. My functional pieces are
signs (like "Sing like no one is listening"), ornaments, mirrors, picture
frames, and so on. The functional art is really inspired by the item itself.
When I am at the thrift store or a yard sale, something will catch my eye and I
see the form and the shape of it and I know it can be beautiful if it just had
some art splashed onto it. It's like I see its potential and then take it home
and give it new life; a much better life! My favorite "transformation" so far
has been the shelf I turned into the "Sing..." sign. No one would ever have
suspected that it used to be a boring white shelf that used to hold art. Now it
is art itself! I have really only completed two non-functional pieces of art, or fine art,
and they are on a typically functional housing (a plant stand and a bowl). The
inspiration for those was traditional Japanese art and art deco. Those are the
things that grab my attention the most and inspire ideas. The butterfly bowl
has an art deco feel to it. The plant stand - [the piece shown here with the tree] - is completely Japanese "in flavor" (even though
I made a likeness of a cherry blossom tree). One piece I am working on right now
is inspired by texture. I would love to do more work that involves manipulating
and playing with different textures.
Q: What do you consider to be your greatest challenge so far in your career as a
mosaic artist?
Kim: My greatest challenges are time and a lack of artistic technical knowledge. I have my whole life ahead of me to mosaic and yet I have so many projects and ideas in my head I feel sometimes like I will explode unless I get them out this week! So I need to have patience and let the ideas sit and percolate and wait until I have time to get to it. It also takes time to gain more experience in a field; some of the artistic techniques that I am not familiar with won't come until I've been mosaic-ing longer. The only art class I've ever taken was in high school. I've been thinking about taking a couple of art classes at our local college, particularly one that emphasizes manipulating acrylic paint. I think I could take what I learn from painting classes and apply it to mosaic. I'd love to learn more about manipulating texture, how to create flow and dimension, and how to layer. I know there are color layering techniques used in painting and I'd like to learn more about that too. [Kim indeed has time constraints as she is a busy mother of a 2-year old]
Thank you to Kim for sharing with me her thoughts about mosaic art. If you are ever in Chico you can find some of Kim's work at the shop Made In Chico, 232 Main Street. Chico's easy to find...go north on I-5 then east on Hwy 32...it'll take you right into the town; or, at Sacramento take Hwy 99 north...it'll run right through Chico.
Comments