Isaiah Zagar Mosaic Workshop
28 and 29 May 2005
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

What a weekend! The most fulfilling thing I've done since volunteering at Ground Zero in the weeks after September 11th back in 2001. Creative, sensory, social, philosophical, educational, inspirational, relaxing, rejuvenating - a fully physical, mental and spiritual experience. Isaiah is an amazing man, the group was great, the weather superb, the neighborhood fun, and the whole experience highly satisfying. Thalia and I returned home with the sense that if would could find a way to give to others what Isaiah gave to us this weekend - well, we would definitely call that a life well-lived! But enough words, here are the photos:

* The photos below are just Caryn's, as of 30 May 2005. Once I get more from Thalia, or others, I will add to this page. Click on images for larger views. Print view.

Saturday
	Holy cow! Thalia's first view of Isaiah's South Philly mosaics.
		We move in for a closer view - the visual experience begins.
	Thalia is in awe and has to touch - the tactile experience begins.
		We begin, by learning to break mirror (without breaking the tools, Thalia...) - the physical experience begins (watch those shards!).
	Isaiah teaches us how to properly break tile - the aural experience begins (breaking tiles is loud!).
		Caryn and Thalia breaking tiles...
	Then we load up the van with our buckets full of broken mirror and tile and head out to our work site a few blocks away where Mike and Lauren have generous offered us the wall of their new home to work on.
	Isaiah draws the outline that will be our guide.
		After our brief and moderately successful training in gluing tile (remember the thumbs, please!), we approach the wall - and the creative experience begins in earnest.
	After tracing the outline with mirror, together we begin to fill in, fill in, fill in. There is no perfect placement, there is no perfect tile. Scrape your palette, slide your tile, jiggle your thumb. As one artist, we work and create together - and the social experience begins to blossom.
	Like life, our day is filled with intermittent challenges and delights. There are more than a few suicidal tiles in the early hours, leaping off the wall to the ground below, unwilling to release themselves into their reincarnated life. There are some temporary panic attacks for those of us obsessive compulsive types who have periodic trouble with the chaos of random tile application, and there's some mild dehydradtion in the hot sun - who said art was easy? But there is also the delight of each other's amusing company and the constant flow of passersby on foot and bike, with child and dog, stopping to admire, encourage and even add a tile or two. And our other senses get to play too - we treat our parched tongues to snacks and Mike's kindly lemonade, while our noses are entertained by neighborhood barbeques, and our ears are serenaded by the sounds of a vibrant neighborhood - music, laughter, dogs, horns, and the crack of a bat every now and again. All of this subtly interspersed with curious peaceful silences as our organic group peridically slips as one into meditative mosaic moments.
	Before we know it the day is over and all the tiles are up! But our work is not done. We must honor the future generations of our fellow mosaic muralists. We must replace the doily blobs that we have launched onto a South Philly wall this warm, happy Saturday afternoon in May.
		Back to the studio we go - plunging our fists into the cool, smooth, red clay; fingering the delicate, crochet work of our grandmothers; pounding our patterns into the future of Philadelphia. Only with a floor full of urban sand dollars are we released back into the neighborhood to contemplate our day and engage with the larger environment.
	Not to be outdone by our own drama, chaos, creativity and attention to future life, Mother Nature sends a whirlwind to remind us not to take life for granted, and a rainstorm to settle the dust and nourish our budding creative hearts. Isaiah and Jeremiah bravely rush to our mosaic site and build a protective shelter for our timid tiles. This tree lies right across the alleyway down which our mosaic resides. Jeremiah, Caryn, Thalia, and a few passersby had to drag the tree from the position you see here, down the block in order to clear the alley so that Isiah and Jeremiah could depart after their daring rescue of the mosaic.
Sunday
	Isaiah begins by hypnotizing us with soothing sounds and swirling colors and textures as he gently mixes the magic grout that will bind all together today.
		In the cool shadow of the early morning we meet our work again. We contemplate Isiah's wisdom that the mirrors keep the mosaic in the present by reflecting the everchanging world around it.
	The master instructs his hypnotized flock...
		The grout is blue.
	It covers. It clouds. It hides. It transforms. It's squishy. It's sloppy. It falls. It clings. It fills. It binds. "Perpendicular. Perpendicular." the master cries.
	As with the previous day, the heart of the work somehow eludes documentation. As the blue grout expires, the ground tarps are harvested and the droppings recycled to stretch the blue as far as it will go. The master returns to the studio with apprentices to mix more grout, while some remain behind to "feather" the mosaic - uncovering hidden pieces and buffing the tile and mirror from the thin cloudy film of grout. When the master returns, the blue parts of the wall are sparkling. But not for long as grouting begins again, and the remainder of the tiles are covered, secured and feathered. The day naturally begins to taper as individuals step back to observe, notice empty spots in need of grout, tiles in need of uncovering, or mirrors in need of buffing. Up close to the wall, then back across the alley for another broad view.
		Back and forth, back and forth until there are more of us back than forth. And then, as empty buckets are loaded into the van, and the street is sweeped, the last few "featherers" step back and somehow, without fanfare, we stop.
	We new artists are preserved for posterity alongside our labor of love. And bless Mike, our dear owner-donor of the wall, for taking photos with no less than half a dozen cameras. What a peach!
		...and then there is only a blue-green, sparkling, breathing, undulating cloud on a wall in South Philly at the corner of Kater Street that wasn't there 36 hours before.
	The celebratory lunch in the shadow of Balinese carvings proclaiming art as the center of the world, marks the final formal sensory, social, reflective moment capping a thoroughly fluid, satisfying and inspiring weekend. And we are once again gently released back into the world. But only after a quiet coda where the master shares his final wisdom about how he uses the last bits of harvested grout droppings to form three-dimensional blobs with crockery and other objects in need of salvaging and revitalizing. These blobs will then be integrated into other mosaics to further animate and engage them with their environments.
	Thank you Isaiah, for a memorably uncategorizable experience! And thanks to all our fellow mirror-cutting, tile-breaking, gluing, blobbing, grouting, feathering, smiling, laughing compadres!
	P.S. I've been inspired by Jeannette to make a web page of My Favorite Artists for her further exploration. Some of you may be interested in some of them.