Meeting My Mentor, the Early Years Part 1
Me and Sadie with my tiled sunflower planters, 1988
Recently I came across some photos of the first 10 years or so of my art career and over the coming months I’d like to make a series of posts about this period. The few photographs I have will dictate which stories I tell and which I omit, I hope you enjoy seeing this series as much as I enjoy putting it together!
My mosaic career began inadvertently in 1988. At that time and for several years to come I really didn’t have much of an interest in mosaic, after all I already had an all-consuming love affair going on with ceramics! Mosaic seemed kind of interesting in a remote way but not something I envisioned for myself.
Front of Bev's Tile House in Albuquerque, NM. I love those GARDEN LADIES she made and added in the early 1990s in the front of the photo.
What happened though was that during my junior year of college we had a visiting artist Bev Magennis in the Ceramics Department at Scripps College during the fall semester. Bev -although she didn’t know it then - was in the process of establishing herself as a world-class mosaic artist and had spent all of her free time over the last few years tiling the exterior of her house in Albuquerque, NM. This project was recognized later by the Smithsonian as one of the nation’s 10 undiscovered treasures.
Bev and I really hit it off from the beginning. Working at neighboring tables over the course of the many hours, weeks and months spent in the studio gave us the opportunity to talk more casually and frequently than is usually possible for teachers and students. Our age difference of 20 years was significant and I’m sure much more so for her but she was very generous and let me feel like a peer, valued and I really never thought much about my inexperience and youth in her presence.
During her time in Claremont she made some ceramic vessels but primarily focused on making glass mosaic birdbaths for her tile house. I watched her piecing together all of these Smalti (small glass mosaic pieces that are usually opaque) and marveled at her patience. I got the idea that I would like to spend some time working with her in the summer of 1988 although it wasn’t because I had a particular interest in mosaic, but rather because I wanted to spend more time learning from her in general. She became my mentor and sort of a second mother and to this day has remained a very important figure in my life with whom I communicate regularly. Scripps College had a grant program for summer study and I got one of those small stipends to work with Bev for 4 weeks which led to such a fun and memorable summer!
Her “Tile House” project began when she decided to put a little ceramic tile border around the front door of her stucco house. It is New Mexico after all and this aesthetic is fitting. Then a neighbor said, “hey, do you need some more tile, I’ve got some in my basement left over from my remodel?” And pretty soon people from all over the area just kept bringing her tile and her tile border grew into a full pledged art project.
By the summer of 1988 when I came, she had completed the front, the sides and was working on the back of her house. In her home studio she had made some ceramic sunflowers with steel stems set in concrete bases. Tiling these “planters” would be my task for the month of August. (see header photo)
![tile house side.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRjgdCYKbisnP5gDmph1WQ5nu9t6fVXVsoFL5dupPRtna/tile%20house%20side.jpg)
the side of Bev's tile house. This is my favorite part of her incredible mosaic project.
Her first words in teaching me about doing broken tile mosaic were along the lines of - mosaic isn’t for everyone, people seem to either take to it or they don’t. Just see if you like it.
With a few pointers under my belt, a hammer in my hand, I started breaking up tile and formulating some ideas for the sunflower planter mosaics. I did one planter each day. We always began the day very early because we would have to stop mid-afternoon for the regular thunderstorms followed by rainbows.
I liked it! Broken tile mosaic is very different from what I do now, but also shares some basic principles that I still keep in mind today when designing a mosaic. The first two planters came out well and the third (see below) which I was hoping to make into a sort of globe showing North and South America, wasn’t as successful. The well-timed lesson taught me about about the necessity of clearly defined forms and keeping the composition very simple when working with broken tile. I applied this in my approach to the rest of the planters.
![planter crop.jpeg](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmanxbyPJYBDCm7nkNSsWfFEcK2BajyBixokaU6kqwTAfn/planter%20crop.jpeg)
At a time when I was much in need of confidence, expanding my medium and having some success with it was important. Although I didn’t make any mosaics again for 4 years or so, a new pathway in my life had opened up which made it possible for me to pursue making my own mosaics years later when I was ready.
What I remember most about that summer was the hot August Albuquerque sun, the smell of the red dirt during the rainstorms, and hours spent at Bev’s dining room table talking and talking and talking. I’m fairly sure she did more listening and I did more of the talking, but she was always gracious so I didn’t notice. I remember my sleeping loft in the tile house, gazing out the tiny window where I got those sweet moments to myself at the start and end of each day, popcorn lunches so we could hurry back outside to do more tiling and the daily walks I took with Bev’s dog Sadie along the irrigation ditches. And of course the New Mexico landscapes. I had never seen anything quite like it and was so moved by the mesas, the palette of the land and watching multiple simultaneous lightening storms over the wide open horizons as we drove out to Acoma or Santa Fe.
A birthday cake Bev and I made for her friend Jim. We had a blast forming the parts from cookie dough!
All in all, I look back and realize how incredibly lucky I was to have met this wonderful woman who opened up my world in so many ways. How incredibly fortunate to have found a mentor who taught me so much about mosaics and ceramics but mostly about how to walk in this world as a artist who celebrates the act of being alive. She was and is a model of an independent spirit living life on her own terms. Artistically - both in ceramics and mosaic - her work continues to inspire joy in me. I’m so grateful to this day for my creative mentor, friend and the mother figure I’ve always needed in my life.
Below is the bedroom wall inside Bev Magennis' Tile House which is all mosaic as well.
![MosaicCurtains_fs.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmZh99bbzjeHGVYaCVxYAuvP3jP3c2zQVoKk5htrHwCHMc/MosaicCurtains_fs.jpg)
![bottle caps.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmbkhaBhcFkiSwLKDiuXduUTcqD4YsPUeTv23jfJ5avAkv/bottle%20caps.jpg)
This post is part of the Blockchain Memory Project initiated by @ericvancewalton, his post and the rules for participation:
https://steemit.com/story/@ericvancewalton/steemit-blockchain-memory-project-my-journal-episode-1
I think it would have been a blast to be a fly on the wall watching you two with iced peach tea!!
Got emotional imagining the New Mexico landscape!
:-), yes we probably were nutty to watch! And oh yes, the NM landscape is really something. I'm going there in the next month to visit her and can't wait to see it! xo
My bff liked it there one time she visited..it can be very dramatic am sure. Have fun Fannie☺
Thanks for sharing these vibrant memories, Ruth! What an amazing opportunity that must have been!
Yes, and actually writing this post made me appreciate it at a new level ... with age that can happen!
That house is amazing! Just knowing about the process makes a person appreciate mosaics so much more. It is very tedious but the results are fantastic.
When I was in Turkey, we went to the ruins of Ephesus and the mosaics there were insane. The streets were mosaics!! An art form from the beginning of civilization.
Oh yes Turkish tile is extraordinary, lucky you for seeing Ephesus in person!! Would love to..
You're so right that it's a very old art, just like making vessels in clay (which I also love ;-))
A beautiful and creative memory to share, thank you @natureofbeing.
thanks @opheliafu!
Oh wow, wow, wow!! Bev's house is amazing and the tiled ladies in the front are so cool! I am so glad you found a great mentor and share such a good relationship with her.
thank you @sharoonyasir, I sure am so glad too....it's always made me feel so fortunate!
That is about the coolest house I've ever seen. Amazing, and it fits so well with that area of the country. The inside work is so funky and artistic. I love it. Did she have to plywood the whole outside, to make it flat and have everything 'stick'? I'm not all that familiar with the process in the outdoors.
Such and interesting project to go back and view the past. It's really fun to read, particularly after meeting you in person. Always amazes me how everyone has such a unique, multi-faceted, complex journey in life. And EVERY person is so different in the end (or when we meet them). We are all so unique. How boring it would be to be otherwise.
I've just recently come to appreciate this long life journey each of us goes through, and how many of the 'steps', no matter how long, are so important and far reaching. It is all so fascinating when you really ponder the journey and what it entails.
Such good fortune to have been able to meet and sustain a friendship with such a creative, giving person. That is so beyond priceless in today's world of the hustle and bustle. And that you have been able to stay in such close contact as friends, even more so.
I look forward to more of your 'tale' of journeying through the artists life. Have a nice day in the clay.
hello @ddschteinn! thanks for your support and comment, her house was stucco to begin with which is actually a decent surface for tile. Anything that is concrete-based is good. Anything that expands and contracts with moisture and temperature (plywood for example) is particularly NOT good for tile :-). Just imagine how the tile stays still while the wood moves. Pretty soon the thinset and grout will flake and crumble and tile will pop off.
I agree that each step winds up being important in the big picture and it's always hard to know at the time which experiences are the important ones. I guess this is why it's so essential to be as present as we can throughout every moment of our lives from mundane to spectacular!
I enjoyed reading this. It is nice to learn a bit of the backside of people!
glad to hear it, I also enjoy the backstory :-))
It took me a while but I'm still within pay out so upvoted and here's my -probably kinda huge this time- comment...
This post brought tears in my eyes. But not sadness tears, happiness tears! Seeing you and your art THAT cute (referring to both hehe), with your mentor, telling us your story and confirming that you are an amazing, creative, talented person with a good heart ...I couldn't help it!
All this you built it with your interest, efforts, studying, creating and I really admire that - I wish I could be more like you in SO many ways...
Loved the atmosphere of the pictures - and for the first time looking at old pictures I did NOT think 'we're getting old' bla bla, I thought...'Look! Some people are accomplished in their lives!' Congrats and hoping to get one tenth out of what you have, if I'm lucky!
Lots and lots of looooove - and hugs, always hugs! :D
how sweet, thank you @meanmommy33 :-)) xoox
Wow Ruth. You really have lived an Artist's life. At first I thought your mentor was Sadie lol. It's amazing how much Bev influenced you. The photos, my goodness I was just a 6 year old buy when those were taken. Look what you were up to at that time. What an incredible house. Talk about making a house a home! Turning your living space into your own canvase turns a house into a prized possession as well!
I'm slowing my role. Got a shared apartment form 15 days here in Santiago Chile. Just made some chicken soup in the kitchen! Looking forward to being more of team steem player and enjoying the post of my friends. Honestly I've barely had time to be on steemit at all. All my post are cut and paste, already in the bank. I've been all over in just the past couple weeks, Cusco and Ariquipa Peru. Arica Chile in the north, down to Patagonia, and now I'm happy to rest up for two weeks in one comfortable spot here in Santiago Chile. So I'll be around the steem-world a bit more often :) Then I'm off to Uruguay!
Have a great day! -Dan
I think Sadie was a mentor to Bev lol ;-)
It really was an incredible project that house....I thought it was cool at the time but now that I've lived more I am even more amazed by it and by her!
Sounds like you've been traveling at a breakneck pace and some stationary time with more routine will be refreshing I can imagine. I'll look forward to more connecting!
Thanks Ruth. Bev and that project house unreal. Hey drop me a note on steemit chat. I'm curious to know how things turned out with those negotiations ;)
Yes I'm really happy to play house for a while. In the past three days I've only left to the super market and back! I'm starting to get excited about venturing about again already! By the April 13 I'll be ready for Uruguay, Argentina, and a faster pace leading up to May tenth where I'll spend a week with my dad in Tampa FL, then a couple weeks with my cousin near Lake George. She's pregnant with twins all of a sudden! So I'll be able to cook and clean and give her a hand while I'm there. Until then this extended pitt stop in Santiago is exactly the rest I need!
good for you for taking some time in the "cave" so you're itching to go out for adventure again. Your family visits sound great and a nice balance to the chance meetings while traveling! I'll message you...
I like these touching moments of the beginning of your creative journey. Old photos are something special. One has only to find them in the closet and an endless stream of memories falls on us. A great idea to share these moments. I would love to follow your stories.
Thank you @anna-mi! more to come ...
Consider adding some of yours to the Memory project too!