Welcome! I am a self-taught pique assiette ("broken from plate")
mosaic artist who has been creating whimsical and elegant pieces since 1998. This is a wonderful way to combine my love of color, vintage pottery, china and jewelry into one alchemical medium. Each one-of-a-kind piece reveals itself to me moment by moment. I'm not always sure where the piece will go when I begin, but the piece knows!

I especially love custom work and I welcome wholesale opportunities.

You can visit my rarely-updated-but-very-cool personal web site here, and my not-updated-since-forever portfolio over on EBSQ here. Both sites contain many of my past creations, sold and commissioned, that will inspire you to lofty and dizzying heights should you wish to commission your own piece. You can also go to my etsy store to BUY STUFF NOW! Please.

email me: lauraw217@gmail.com

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Sidney, My Solace. Merry Christmas to Annie C.!

I discovered over the summer, while chatting with several other artists in various mediums, that I am an artistic anomaly. I LOVE CUSTOM WORK! I would rather make special pieces for special people for the rest of my life than sit around manufacturing stuff on spec that I think will appeal to prospective buyers. I've got plenty of that in my etsy store gathering dust. Go look! -------->

I have a calm confidence in my creative instincts, I trust my (normally spot on when I don't get in the way) intuitions, I delight in deadlines, and I love me some an inspiring muse. That said....

I had the joy of doing a Christmas commission for a friend who wanted to memorialize his youngest sister's deceased cat, Sid. Said friend had commissioned me a year and a half ago to make a memorial frame for his other sister's deceased dog, Irie, as a birthday gift for her. Apparently youngest sister saw older sister's frame and loved it and what's a peace-loving big brother to do but keep the favoritism scales balanced as best he can?

I had access to a few photos of Sid via my friend's blog, and being the super cyber stalker that I am, it was easy to find Annie on FaceBook and quickly see that she adored Sid and he was most certainly her "solace" during a very painful time in her life.



As synchronicity would have it, I happened to have a rather chubby, black and white cat brooch in my personal stash that resembled Sid perfectly.

From what little I could glean about Annie from her FaceBook page, it was clear she loves all animals, so the birds, bunnies and elephants all clamored for inclusion.

The tiny unicorn next to the "y" in "my" was an inside political joke for her big brother I could not resist.

And here is the earlier tribute to Irie, Devon's beloved:







Next up:
Frames for the still-living pets!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Lima & Prissy - Merry Christmas To Cary!

One of my very special clients (Ms. Tally) asked me to make a custom Christmas frame for her best friend, Cary, who shares her life with Lima, a black Pug, and Prissy, a brown Dachshund. Tally wished me "good luck" in finding black Pug chotskies and I thought: "I am The Queen of Cool Vintage Jewelry. How hard can it be?" Ha. "Very hard" was the answer. After weeks of searching for black Pug charms and brooches (do you know how many fawn-colored Pug items there are in the world?) I surrendered.

Fortunately, my good pal and fellow Cashiers Village Hillside Shops artist, Evie Auerbach, specializes in porcelain dogs! Here she is, skillfully crafting two faces for us:


The tongue was the most important part, of course.


My photos don't do Evie's work justice.





Thank you for another very fulfilling and fun commission, Tally!