Ah, the Art Van Emerges...

I have wanted to create an art van for over ten years. It became a private, inner obsession with me to buy one and complete it in the art style I had fallen in love with as a girl – mosaics a la Gaudi.

So, the opportunity finally came to purchase an old van, and I grabbed at it like a hungry osprey goes after a fish. The research had been done, and all the shiny, pretty ones were tossed aside for an old Verizon fleet van, with over 100,000 miles on it and fourteen years of hard labor behind it. I finally saw the chance to make this van into a rolling testimonial to what could be done with old, chipped plates. And an old, tired cast-off piece of machinery.

I had many hits and misses with using broken plates on my work in the past. Some plates, the porcelain ones, were too brittle when broken for my liking. I had trouble with adhesives and grout. I have made mosaic mirrors, mailboxes, pool floors and kitchen backsplashes. I have designed so many traditional tile mosaics, my head spins thinking about them all. I mostly used glass tiles for everything, loving the clear, clean abstract feel of them all. But, that gets pricey, and as I was selling my work and my talent, I had to consider the supply costs. I also had a desire to do upcycled art exclusively, using materials people threw away or sold cheap at thrift stores and yard sales.  But, I didn't like the sharpness of the edges, so I bought a commercial rock tumbler and tumbled my first batch almost exactly 12 years ago. They came out beautifully muted and soft on the edges. I was hooked.

Literally thousands of plates later, here I am, finally seeing my dream of making a mosaic-covered art van come to fruition. I have found which plates to buy, which ones will keep their color and which ones will tumble out lighter or darker. I can almost predict the exact colors they will become in the silica and sand stew I use to process them to perfection. I know just how to break them, nip them and carve them into shapes. I know the adhesives to use to permanently adhere them to both organic and metal/concrete surfaces and which grout works best to provide the finishing touch.

I plan on finishing my van in a little over a year, and will keep it running smooth and trouble-free for as long as I can afford it. It will be my opus, my final, large tribute to the beauty I find in mosaic work. I will always do mosaic work as long as the heart (and hands) hold out, but as I am driving down the road (albeit at a lower gas mileage ratio) to go to an art show or explore back roads and byways, I'll be  able to drive my masterpiece to my destinations. I liken this commitment to getting a tattoo.  In other words:

If you believe in something, take responsibility for it.

If you believe in something, don't let anyone or anything stand in your path to achieving it.

If you believe in something, stop talking about it and do it.

If you believe in something, make it permanent.