During her world travels, Easthampton artist Christine Kenneally was struck, she says, by the beauty and creativity of mosaics she saw, especially in Europe and Central America, where artists often use broken pottery and found objects in their creations.
In 2004, Kenneally, 36, began making small mosaics to hang on her wall, but quickly turned to larger work, including kitchen and bathroom backsplashes and murals.
She began teaching others how to do mosaics four years later, which led her to develop a method (“through much trial and error”) for making functional mosaic garden stepping stones.
“This is a wonderful teaching project, as students can complete them in a short amount of time and learn a lot in the process,” she says.
Hampshire Life: What is your creative process like?
Christine Kenneally: Before I start, I do a lot of research and sketching. I study and fill my head with imagery. Once I have a sketch or blueprint, I experiment with color by tossing a few pieces of different colors down and seeing how they work together. After I choose my color palette, I cut my materials by hand with my nippers. Cutting is very repetitive and meditative for me. Then, working right over my drawing, I arrange (and rearrange) the pieces (or tesserae, as they are called) in patterns. Creating the patterns is the bulk of the work. It’s kind of like painting with glass.
H.L.: Does a piece ever start with a “Eureka!”moment?
C.K.: I wish I could say yes, but I often experience inspiration as an evolving process that ebbs and flows. The idea develops bit by bit. I do have moments of clarity where I can really envision my goal, but I also have moments where I wonder if it will all work out.
H.L.: How do you know you’re on the right track?
C.K.: I get as far away from my work as possible (usually by standing on a chair) and squint my eyes. This makes everything blur together and tells me whether the individual pieces are coming together to tell the story I want. It’s hard, because while working on a mosaic, I am seeing it very close up, but when it is hanging on a wall or out in the garden, it will be seen from a larger distance. It’s important that it works from that larger distance.
H.L.: What do you do when you get stuck?
C.K.: I take a break, drink water, go for a run, remind myself to breathe. I can always tell when I get out of the flow, because the pieces don’t seem to fit right, and it feels like a struggle. Usually if I take a break, I can come back and actually listen to the mosaic. That might sound crazy, but I do have a relationship with the work that involves a lot of listening and compromise.
H.L.: What did you do today that relates to your art?
C.K.: I cut up shades of purple glass and created a mosaic of a night sky over turbulent water. I did some sketching for a new line of mosaic stepping stones for spring that will be for sale at Cedar Chest in Northampton. And I ordered supplies for my upcoming workshops.
H.L.: What is it about mosaics that holds your interest?
C.K.: The longer you look, the more you see. It’s often a treasure hunt to look at a mosaic for a long time, noticing the individual details: the way the shapes fit together, the patterns created by the repetition of lines, the colors and the texture of it all, the way light dances on the surface.
— Kathleen Mellen
Christine Kenneally will teach a Mosaic Garden Stepping Stones workshop May 7 and 8 at Snow Farm in Williamsburg For information, visit www.snowfarm.org.
She also teaches workshops in her studio in the Paragon Building in Easthampton. For information, visit christinekenneallyart.com.