Lime mortar master class in Edinburgh

Lime Mortar Master Class*

I recently signed up for a lime mortar master class in Edinburgh and as I sat down to write about it, I felt a door gently click open. I left the writing and went back to my current mosaic project. It is a house warming commission of a tree; an oak for Ireland with roots winding around the frame for the roots of family.

Mosaic inspiration

And as I worked, ideas began to creep in through that open door. At first they were hesitant and kept their distance. Then they grew bolder and came to lie at my feet. The simple act of signing up for a lime mortar master class to be taught by Dagmar Friedrich of Spilimbergo and Joanna Kessel of Edinburgh Mosaic Studios had let in a whole new world of mosaic inspiration.

The ideas begin to come

As with all inspiration, however, the ideas had always been there. But they were translucent, hovering things which would occasionally try to land and take hold before being batted away by current projects, domestic duties and more familiar, easier ways of working.

I read what the lime mortar master class entailed, about the gathering of materials – of stones, marble, porcelain and glass, sea worn glass, ceramic and fired clay. I would learn to mould the lime substrate, to make it textured or smooth, before taking the materials and pressing them into the surface. The more I read the more the ideas began to grow larger, to gain substance and to gather around me.

A long held desire

I have long wanted to go to Italy to learn the lime mortar mosaic method but Life, that slippery, tricky thing, was for ever getting in the way. So when I heard that Friedrich was coming to Edinburgh at the end of August, during the last few days of the Edinburgh International Festival, I signed up without a moment’s hesitation.

I could see clearly that the source of inspiration was coming from three distinct directions and converging on the malleable surface of the lime mortar. These were:

• 1. The work of found-object and collected stone mosaic artists like Rachel Sager and Julie Sperling:

  

  
  2. A part documentary and part travel-log I had recently watched about Greece which

  

  included footage of a landfill outside Athens where I live. This landfill, the voiceover informed me, is the largest in – the – world.

• 3. My father.

Collecting in the family

My father has always been a collector, whether of art or stones or books or clippings from newspapers. He is now a nonegarian mostly reliant on others for his personal needs but his old, somewhat eccentric, habits remain.

When I visited him not long ago in hospital, he sat in a high backed institutional chair unable to do anything but read, eat and wait for my mother’s visits. When she arrived, he produced a set of  thimble-sized plastic pill cups from under his pyjamas and gave them to her triumphantly. This act was the basis of a new collection and he was determined to see it grow.  If he’s not vigilant, he said, the nurses would whisk them away and put them in the bin.  Back home, on the mantlepiece in their bedroom, the pillars of cups are growing.

The things we leave behind

So what I want to do, what I will try to do, is to use the lime mortar masterclass to make a mosaic piece about the things we leave behind.  The inconsequential, unwanted, trivial things; the neglected, disregarded, and discarded. Things which are scarcely granted any importance or attention in our lives and yet are as a part of us and of what we bequeath when we die. Even more so, perhaps, than the more valuable objects or recognisable achievements which we hope to be remembered by. That landfill is our endowment.

A new direction

Of course I do not seek to claim that there is anything original about this. Using reclaimed items to make new objects, to make us re-see the ordinary, is a well trodden path.

But I wish merely to say that the lime mortar master class has inspired me to explore what is new territory for me. I am excited about all the possiblities of experimenting with texture. About the sheer physical fun of working with a new material, about pressing down into the surface of the mosaic, like toes into moss, fingers into dough. Working with lime mortar will let me explore angles and oddities which my two-dimensional work up until now has not permitted.

Personal mosaics

I have always enjoyed making mosaics which are personal. I like the way that the medium which is so inherently timeless and ownerless can be used to celebrate or memorialise a specific private event.

So this mosaic, as I see it, will be about my own father’s life. I would like to gather in one piece the small things which I associate with him. It helps that he, too, is a lover of stone. I spent time as child helping him repair the dry stone walls around our fields in Scotland.

He also carefully collected fragments of pottery which he found when digging in the garden. They will work well in the mosaic. So, too, would pebbles from his beloved burn which runs past the house.

Other materials

That’s the easy part. I will have to think long and hard about what to bring to the lime mortar master class. Screws, maybe – he is a maker and fixer. Pieces of wood because trees are a passion. But it’s important for me to include the equivalent of those plastic pill-cups. To incorporate the stuff that he has accumulated around him. The lovely and the not-so lovely that he has allowed to pile up or left to decay.

Needless to say collecting the materials is only part of the preparation process for the lime mortar master class. The mosaic needs a design/pattern too so there is much to ponder. It’s time to go back to my mosaic table and let the thoughts distill.

  You can see more of Dagmar’s work at www.dagmarmosaici.it