Mosaic

The phone rang. A voice said ‘Hello. It’s Lucas’. This was a surprise. Lucas was a lovely Australian guy who worked at the workshop over ten years ago. Eventually his visa expired and he left.

At the most, there were never more than about twelve people who worked at the workshop. The team undertook a variety of jobs: sticking, laying, cutting, washing off, stacking and drying mosaic material, and eventually, mail order and looking after customers.  The task of designing and laying out the work was undertaken by two of us, Tessa and me. There was one particularly nasty job – cutting marble. These were the days before it was easy to source marble cubes, and if we wanted to use the material, we had to cut it from tiles. It meant wearing ear-defenders as protection from the ear-splitting screech of the machine, getting cold and wet, and working downstairs alone in the echoing darkness. This job was often given to Lucas.

The workshop was unpredictable in those days. One minute, team members were weeping over poverty or boyfriends, lack of sleep or dissolving marriages, and noses were hurriedly blown before answering the telephone; the next minute a powerful Singaporean businesswoman was on the line ordering a substantial mosaic floor for a hotel in the Maldives. As a reward for tedious labour Lucas went on a desert island ten-day trip to install the Maldivean floor with another, more experienced fixer. Within a short time the job was complete. For five days they surfed and swam.

Sometimes the jobs were less exotic. We restored a nineteenth century mosaic, made in smalti and gold for the dome of a chapel in Yorkshire. Six sets of scaffold from the floor and high up in the church, it was easy for people below to overlook our presence. Occasionally a garrulous and rather boring expert checked our workmanship. Whilst the church was out of commission, the organ was repaired. We endured several days of windy piping and blowing, echoing round the dome, followed by a protracted tuning session. Eventually the cacophony ceased. The expert came to check how we were getting on. She was in mid flow, when Lucas handed me a note.  ‘I think I preferred the organ’ it read.

Nautilus mosaic in marble and terracotta for a hotel entrance in the Maldive Islands.

Mosaic laid out in reverse on workshop floor.

Posted under: Mosaic by Emma Biggs