True Confessions of Hannah Faith

Finished! Well.. almost

Posted on April 9th, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: Art, General.

Finally… I finished my large birch mosaic.

Now I am ready to grout my Aunt Margaret’s mosaic, my Aunt Barbara’s mosaic, and the birch tree. Should be a fun grouting party tomorrow.

Here’s what the birch tree looks like right now, prior to framing and grouting. (the white spots are where the glue hasn’t dried yet)

7 comments.

Work in Progress

Posted on March 14th, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: Art, General.

I’ve been busy the past two weeks working on mosaics. I’ve got one for my Aunt Margaret and one for my Aunt Barbara both completed except for the grouting. I’ve also been working on a large piece (36×12″) with a birch tree on it.

The twin birch mosaic (12×12″) is for my Aunt Margaret (hope you like it!).

7 comments.

My week

Posted on March 4th, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: Art, General.

Yesterday, Seámus had his six month well-baby checkup. Everything was fine… but they are concerned about his weight. :sigh: If you were to look at him, he doesn’t look like a below-weight baby. He looks happy and healthy. But they want me to come in a few weeks to have his weight checked again. He’s in the 90th percentile for height, and 10th perecentile for weight - not really a good combination, I guess. He hasn’t been too interested in solids, so we’ve not pushed it, but now his pediatrician really wants us to get him going on solids. We’ll try!

I’ve been busy with my mosaics this week. I finished up my smalti pieces so I can put the smalti away for now. It’s fun to play with and it really helped me improve my technique, but I don’t like working with it exclusively. I bought a 4×8′ piece of plywood today, and Phil is busy cutting it up into pieces for my next batch of mosaics. I’ve got a number of orders to fill and I am starting to prepare for the summer shows. I’ve already signed up for four shows, and I am probably going to try to get into another one which is juried. We’ll see from there. I like to do the shows in Greenville because they are cheap and it helps me form a local presence. The juried show is a little more expensive, but hopefully it will be worth it. If I’m going to pay more to do a show, I want to be able to count on it being a worthwile investment. I’m also thinking about having a sign-up at my shows for a newsletter detailing my current work and special offers. I’d really like to have this option for those people who stop at my booth, are interested in it, but want to think about it some more (and then usually forget).

7 comments.

Smalti

Posted on January 21st, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: Art, General.

My smalti glass arrived yesterday. I couldn’t wait to play with it, but I put it off until the kids were in bed and the house was decent.

Encyclopedia of Mosaic Techniques:

Smalti:
This is the material in which Byzantine mosaic were made. It is produced in cakes, often about 12 in. in diameter and is cut down from these into rectangular tesserae about 1/3 in thick and about 2/3 in long. Smalti is enameled glass and has enormous intensity of color. It is very expensive and not particularly easy to use. The glass is pitted with little holes and is traditionally left ungrouted because the holes fill up with grout, muting the vibrancy of color.

I did not get the traditional cut of smalti. I saved about 30% by ordering 2 in x 2 in cakes of smalti. Then I cut these down to size. This is not easy. I really need to get the appropriate tools (i.e. hammer and hardie), but these are completly out of my price range right now. I’m looking for used ones. For now, I’m cutting with my wheeled cutters - which does work, but it is hard on my hands.

Smalti is so beautiful when mosaiked. It doesn’t require grouting (hurray!), but isn’t always the easiest material to work with, as you need to precisely fit pieces together. Because there isn’t grout, it is possible to get a great amount of detail into smalti work. Last night, I completed a birch tree and part of a sky… wish I could post pictures, but ever since we got back from Christmas, I haven’t been able to find our camera cord to connect to the computer.

This mosaic can be found in the Wits End Mosaic gallery

The majority of the tesserae in this piece is smalti

My smalti work is a little more irregular than this piece. I don’t cut all of my smalti in to rectangular pieces. I like the effect of different textures and height of individual pieces.

1 comment.

Craft Show #4

Posted on November 29th, 2004 by hanfaith.
Categories: Art, General.

Well, I ‘m finally back after a weekend of shows. It was exhausting! The show was two days in Augusta - about 2 hours away from us. Phil stayed home with the kids, so I made the trip alone and impressed even myself by being able to handle setting up the whole display by myself. Speaking of the display, here are some pictures:

I got up at 4:30 Saturday morning to make it to the show in time to set up. Thankfully, the weather wasn’t too bad. The roads were pretty clear, exept for hunters (it was the last day of deer season, after all). I got there, only to find that the show promoter had no idea who I was and didn’t have a space for me. ???? I had signed up online, payed, and even emailed her a couple of weeks ago just to make sure that everything was ok. I guess she lost my name somewhere in the process. Anyway, she managed to slide a couple of booths over and squeeze me in - so it didn’t work out too bad. I’m not sure I’ll want to go with this promoter again. She was very confusing to work with. She changed the times of the show about three times- and some of the crafters didn’t get the word and showed up late. I originally heard the show was 10-4, then I checked the (very confusing website) to see in one place it was listed 10-4, and another 9-4. But when I got there, it was really 9-5. Oh well… it just made for a very long day The promoter also didn’t stop mediums. So while this was overall a very high quality show (not very much cheap, kitschy stuff) some crafters were pretty upset. The lady next to me did jewelry - as did about 10+ other booths. By the time people got to her booth, they were complaining about it being another jewelry booth. Thankfully mosaics are pretty scarce in Maine, so I was the sole seller.

I got some great responses on Saturday. It was wonderful to be able to talk about my art with people who really understand mosaics and the process that goes into them. They can truly appreciate how much work a piece takes (and the price that goes with it). There’s nothing worse than a person walking by a mosaic stand saying, “oh, i made those in kindergarten”. I had one lady stop by who loved, loved, loved my work - to the point of tears. She was so excited. She said she hadn’t seen anything in the show to interest her until she saw my work. It was so unique and different that she was just over the moon trying to pick out pieces. She was very interested in one of my larger pieces (and I was hoping!!), but she ended up taking three of my smaller pieces. Her friend that was with her came back later and bought another piece.

I also got my website out there. So far, it looks like I’ve gotten a lot of website hits from the weekend already. People are already inquiring about mosaics through it. There was a radio announcer at the show and he described different booths on the air including yours truly. He even threw in my website for those who couldn’t make it to the show. Free advertising!

I was a little worried when I set up my booth because the people on either side of me had much cheaper things for sale. However, that didn’t seem to hurt my sales. I did walk around a little and see that I wasn’t expensive at all compared to the other art sellers. There were only three other artists there. The response to my prices was fine. People seemed to fall in love with the work and then look at the prices. They would have bought if my prices were low or high. Thankfully, I think I’ve finally hit appropriate prices. The artsy people who looked at my pieces thought they were very reasonable.

I’m finally able to pinpoint my target audience. I could pick out in a whole crowd of people moving toward my booth who would stop and look. It attracted 20-30 year olds, married, no kids, artsy, well-dressed and 50+ artsy, and well-dressed. By well-dressed, I mean not wearing snowman sweatshirts. Those people with a tailored look seemed more attracted to my work.

Many people asked me if I taught classes. I guess that would be fun to do someday after I feel like I really have a grasp of my medium. There’s so much to learn and know about the art of mosaics, that sometimes I feel like I’ll never understand it all!

Sunday I didn’t do as well as Saturday, but that was to be expected. Non one did particularly well that day (unless you count the girl next to me with jewelry - she brought a friend who bought 250+ dollars of inventory for Christmas presents - that’ll up your days profit really quick!).

Many people also asked if I was happy in craft sales or if I would do art shows. They seemed to feel (and I completly agree with them) that my work would be better seen in that type of setting. Right now, I’m concentrating on networking, getting my name out there, and improving my artwork. My goal is to try to get into a Boston art show next fall. I’m trying to sell/give away more of my little pieces, so I can concentrate on my larger art pieces.

I ended up the day making some trades for Christmas presents. All in all, it was a great show. I learned a lot, got some great exposure, and made a profit. The fair season is over now, so it’s back to work, building up my stock and working on improving my technique.

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