In November, 2019, my colleague, Melissa Knight, and I were excited to dedicate a new piece of public art at the Rosewood Zaragosa Neighborhood Center in Austin, TX. "The Community Quilt” was a mosaic that we designed and fabricated with over 100 members of the Rosewood Community, funded in part by a City of Austin Cultural Initiative grant, local businesses, friends, and other private donors.
This piece exemplified the community building power of art. Through a series of workshops, free and open to the public, we designed the mosaic and made hundreds of tiles (which I then assembled into the final piece). People of many cultures, languages, and ages created art together, talked about their lives and changing communities, shared visual and philosophical ideas, and most importantly, had a lot of fun! I can’t tell you how many people accidentally discovered the workshops while visiting the neighborhood center for one of its many services, decided to sit down “for five minutes to see what it was all about,” then exclaimed, four hours later, “I am having the best time of my life! I never knew I was an artist!”
I am thrilled with both the process and the final aesthetic of this piece and cannot wait to do more projects like this one. Check out the photos (courtesy of David Comeau) below that illustrate how we made the “Community Quilt.” And, hear my interview with Bob Dailey on KOOP radio!
At the first workshop, we all drew quilt patterns, often inspired by our culture, or our family memories. We also perused a lot of quilting and weaving books to think about patterns and how they are organized.
Many people alternated between working on separate images that reflected their own world, and interacting with the rest of the groups’ patterns.
Our second and third workshops were all about tile making!
We had many templates and designs people could choose from to make their tiles, though people were also free to create their own shapes and designs.
After the tiles dried for a couple weeks we could hold the glazing workshops.
After the glazing workshops I fired everyone’s tiles.
Then, I started to assemble the tiles into the larger mosaic, using our original design as a map.
Since this had to be a free standing artwork, we had to dig and pour concrete footings.
The mosaic was porcelain tile, mounted to cementitious board with cement thinset, and framed with decking. These frames were then screwed into the larger steel frame.
First, we advertised the workshops all over town.
We were challenged to try and borrow from, respond to, and connect our patterns with our neighbors’ patterns.
After the drawing session I took everyone’s patterns and collective drawings and created a final “working” design for the quilt… I say “working” because I knew this design would serve only as a map that would guide, not dictate, future tile making.
Both the tile making workshops were fun filled, busy days. We made A LOT OF TILE!
So many hands made this mosaic!
We built a steel frame to hold the mosaic and welded it to the footings.
Installation Day!
Finally the mosaic is installed!