Arts, Feature

Making mosaics the ‘old-fashioned’ way

• Tile artist uses color and time-honored tradition to create masterpiece

By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune
Local tile artist Josh Nordstrom’s recent work of art is something many would consider on par with pieces previously only the province of public buildings and chapels.
However, Nordstrom’s mosaic masterpiece adorns the rungs of stair in a local home; the culmination of an ancient tradition of hand-firing clay pieces and placing them together to form a scene.
For Sue Post and Jim Levine – who commissioned Nordstrom to do the piece – that mosaic scene reflects the ocean, beach, sunset and many other details that help illustrate their lives. A luminenscent grouting lights the sun rise even at night with glow-in-the-dark flecks.
Nordstrom, who has been doing tile work for nine years, insists he’s not completely following the old Roman-Greco art form, but says he is inspired by the many mosaics that have lasted throughout the centuries.

“They didn’t have electric kilns back then, so I’m not completely following the past,” he explained.
Nordstrom’s newest piece took eight months from conception to completion. And while, ordinarily, a mosaic of this proportion would take two or three months, Post and Levine’s piece spans their staircase at 33 inches wide and 87 inches long. The piece is sectioned into 11 strips.
Nordstrom has completed several other works under his business, Tierra Tile, but none as ambitious as this one. It comprises 2,000 pieces, all hand-cut, kilned and then hand-painted using 40 different colors.
“I use low-fire clay and glazes, with a bright spectrum of colors to work with,” he said, speaking of the process. “I do everything by hand. I run it through a slab roller to get it to the desired thickness, which in this case, is half an inch. It shrinks a little bit, so you have to take that into consideration.”
Nordstrom works from a series of templates, with each of the 2,000 pieces labeled for their spot on the mosaic. Once it is placed on mesh in sections, he is ready to install it.
Levine, an engineer who works for Jay Brant Construction and is serving on the Homer Electric Association Board of Directors, said he hasn’t made a habit out of collecting art. He and Sue just wanted to do something different in their home.
Levine said his wife saw a mosaic in a book and had heard of Nordstrom’s work. They met with him, and from their concept, Nordstrom drew up four renditions of what the mosaic might look like. The couple wanted a horse, a dog, a beach scene and other elements illustrating their lives. After settling on the designs, Nordstrom went to work in his shop.
During the process, he visited Nordstrom in his studio a few times as he developed an interest in how the process worked.
“It’s really amazing,” Levine said. “It is all handmade. Every tile he made specifically for that spot.”
Nordstrom said that, while this last piece is a departure from the other works of mosaic he has done in the past, it is more what he would like to do for a living full time. Even in high school he had grown interested in pottery, and has owned a kiln ever since. “I knew I didn’t want to just throw pots,” he said. Instead of learning his craft in college programs, he learned it by doing the work, experimenting with clay, colors, cuts and designs.
Yet life took him the direction of construction work, completing more routine tile work for new constructions or remodels. He did some artistic tiling, such as this most recent one, for specific projects prior to moving to Homer from the West Coast. Yet, in Homer since 2000, he has been able to focus more and more on the artistic tiling that has grabbed his creative energy and ideas.
Tierra Tile has focused mostly on traditional tile jobs in the past, however, Nordstrom has also created stone “rugs,” artistic wall tiling and special insets. One of his works recreates the Homer Spit on a floor; a bathroom wall is tiled in beach grass scenery, and he has done stone table tops in stained glass patterns.
Homer’s range of creative citizens, the art commissioned here in public buildings and the desires of consumers to elaborate on their homely surroundings all form inspiration for this 34-year-old artist. “I think this is the kind of work I would like to be known for,” he said. More of his work can be viewed at www/tierratile.net

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Posted by Newsroom on Nov 25th, 2009 and filed under Arts, Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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