Joy 3/82: My Bench

An old, raw wood bench came with my house.  It was an unsightly thing and I was ready to get rid of it but I've watched the people in my mosaic class transform the most ordinary things into works of art, so I decided to give my bench a second chance.  My granddaughter and I painted it purple and pistachio (a paint store mishap) and then I began to mosaic the seat.  This isn't a small bench ... it's probably six feet long and 20 inches deep ... that's a lot of territory to cover ... especially with no plan.

Not having a plan worried me for awhile but I remembered the intuitive painting class I took with Stewart Cubley http://www.processarts.com/ many years ago and decided to use the same process with the bench.  So that's what I'm doing, taking one step at a time, following my feelings about what wants to come next and it is joyful.  It amazes me that I enjoy this so much because it is slow and painstakingly detailed.  But, yesterday I spent about six hours on it and had to drag myself away when company arrived.  The hours just float away as I play with the brightly colored bits of glass and tile, cutting hundreds of tiny shards to fit together just so.  It's sort of like working a jig saw puzzle where you don't have the picture and you have to make all the pieces by hand.

I'm a fast-paced person and like most people in today's world, a multi-tasker.  It's proving to be very peaceful and satisfying to do something that has to be done slowly and carefully and requires my full attention.  Here's a detail shot of the work in progress.