MOSAIC ART Feat. MY FATHER – INTRODUCING HIM AND HIS WORK TO STEEMIT

Art has always been a passion for my father, but he always expressed this passion just as a hobby. He was never a full time artist. His job was quite a contradiction to his artistic side and kept him very busy on most days of the week.  During his working years, his connection with art was mainly as a collector rather than producing it himself. After his retirement, he decided it was time to start creating rather than just collecting. He registered himself at a local mosaic art class and he was instantly captivated. Since then he has spent endless hours working on his mosaics. Some take him a couple of weeks to finish, others took him many months. 

My father decided to convert my childhood room into his 'workshop'

Since each mosaic work takes a long time to complete, he only has 15-20 finished pieces to show - but he is constantly working on new ones. He has been getting many encouraging compliments from friends and relatives about his work, but he has always wondered what the rest of the world would think about what he does. I took the opportunity to talk to him about STEEMIT and even though my blog here has never been related to art, I offered to make an article about him. He loved the idea and he has already started working on a new project which will include the STEEMIT logo. If the STEEMIT community is interested, I will keep you updated on how that goes. But in today’s article I will include two pieces of his work, one of his first and one of his most recent ones.  

1.  Keramidogatos (The Tom Cat)  

The Greek word for Tom Cat is 'Κεραμιδόγατος'  (keramidogatos) which if literally translated, means ‘Cat of the Roof Tiles’. My dad decided therefore to take a simple ceramic roof tile and turn it into his new mosaic art work by forming on it a cat using pieces of colored ceramic and glass tiles. He insists that a picture of our own cat acted as his inspiration. This work has mostly a surrealistic character and took about 2 months to be completed. It now decorates a wall in our back yard.    

The finished work

Zoomed in for a closer look

His inspiration.  She is definitely too cute (and the wrong sex) to be a 'Tom Cat'.  My dad found her hiding in our garage approximately 3 years ago.  He gave her some food and since then they became best friends.

The mosaic and the 'inspiration' together :)

2. A new table for mum 

As the weather gets better, it is a tradition in my home country for families to sit together during the afternoon at the outside areas of the house. Because of that, my mother decided that a new table was needed for our front porch. My father took the responsibility to find one. Instead of buying a new table he decided to create one. He bought a circular wooden base of about 40 inches (1 meter) in diameter and a huge color combination of ceramic tiles. After using many paintings and art works as inspiration, he drew with a pencil his design on the wooden base and started creating his new mosaic. The theme of the mosaic is ‘The Spring’, named after the season when he started working on it. The central part of the table symbolizes the beginning of spring with a shape and design resembling the ‘explosion’ of colors, blooming of flowers, their aromas and all the new wildlife that comes with this season. You can see the birds surrounding the baskets of flowers and fruit, all embedded into a layer of spring plants. The 4 harps are there to symbolize the harmony between all the elements of this season. All these are surrounded by a blue stream of water, calmly flowing in a circle around the mosaic.   

A distant shot of the table

A closer look of the central part, the basket, the birds and the harp

Mum decided that the table was too good for the front porch so she placed it in the living room.  My dad had to buy a table anyway :)

I hope you enjoyed this first sample of my father’s art work. If you did, please let me know in the comments section and I will make sure he will be informed of all your opinions and feedback. He has many other completed works, which I will gladly show you in the future if you are interested. As I mentioned earlier, he is also working on a little surprise piece of artwork, made especially for STEEMIT.  More on that later on.. 

-CT.    

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