Found Art

This is the first panel of my under-the-deck mosaic wall ... a huge project suggested by my friend and mosaic classmate, Beverly, who somehow made me believe that I could do it.  


One of the things I love about mosaics is its "everything is fair game" approach to art.  It makes you look at life differently when anything you see is a potential art supply.  In this panel, the sun face came from a store in Big Sur, there is tempered glass from car windows, broken plates, some mirror fragments I found on a forest trail not far from my house and all of the rocks are from Montana de Oro just north of San Luis Obispo.

Recycling the discards of life into art is an ancient tradition but very new to me.  It is taking me awhile to see things in a different light, to start looking at what they might be or at their inherent beauty of shape or line.  Maybe as I get older, old things are taking on a new meaning.  ;-)