work stuff

yesterday i went with harold to visit and photograph some of his fireplace carvings. at one point we passed a house where i had done some work years ago and i said, "pull in here." i knew the original homeowners no longer lived there, but there was one project i did there i'd never gotten a photo of. plus, i've since lost all of my digital copies of the rest.

i'm not exactly sure when it was i did this job. i do remember my son sean helping me lay the stone and brick patios and he was about 11 or 12 at the time, so i guess that puts it about 1995 or '96. i also remembered it being a job site with at least one example of every type of work i do: from the pedestrian tile, slate, brick and stone flatwork; to designing, building and installing mosaics; to designing and carving stone relief sculptures.

the original homeowners liked to travel and one of their interests was old scottish, irish and english castles. at one point in the project they decided they wanted the shower in their guesthouse to look like a castle! how cool is that? after a little (or a lot of) research of castle elements, this is what i came up with...

there wasn't much room to deal with so i had to keep it simple. the 8" x 8" rustic tile walls were meant to simulate heavy stone masonry walls. the arched *window* intended to stretch the space, is in the shape of the windows in one of their favorite castles. i don't remember now which one.

the italian glass, tile mosaic landscape looks pretty crude to me now. in fact, harold even said as much - that he didn't think it looked like my usual work. as i recall, my focus was on the colors rather than detail. there are probably 50-60 different blues, browns, golds, greens...i used to know how many, but don't remember now.

and there's something missing from the original installation: the bit of whimsy i normally include in some way in all of my work. in this case it was the sheep on the hillside, but someone had removed them.

you see, i'd gone to a local hobby shop and purchased seven HO-scale, plastic sheep. 6 white and one black. i'd sliced the backsides off with a blade and epoxied them to the tile. the homeowners loved it. when i asked the new owners about them, the wife looked perplexed, but the husband laughed and patted me on the back saying,"oh, i remember them. that was my favorite part! some guest must have removed them. would you like to find some more and get them back to grazing in my shower?"

would i!? HELL, yeah.

(he's also interested in seeing and finding a place for my original mock-up of the mosaic i did in his swimming pool. it's made of $450/square foot, real gold tile that the original owner decided against for aesthetic, not monetary, reasons, but in my opinion would have been a much more handsome finished product. the new guy agrees with me and who knows...maybe i'll get to redo it the way i thought it should have been done all along. suh-weet.)

the wreath is about 10-11 feet across, i think. it's an exact replica of a tiny (approx. 5" diam.)wrought iron detail on the iron gates at either end of the estate which was built in the 1920's. see what i mean about the contrast? even though the gold tile was nixed for being too *glitzy,* i think the darker contrast would be much more subtle and the gold would add a degree of sophistication rather than a gaudy quality.

...so, back to the *castle shower*...

this bench is made of tile that really looks like wood. i found this element in many of the pictures of castle interiors. placed in the stairwells usually, they were used to store weapons and food supplies in case of seige.



the photos we took of my stone carvings didn't turn out so well. when i go back i'll take some better ones and tell you a funny story that goes with them.