I am not a naturally organized person. It’s actually quite difficult for me to file, fold, and place items in a systematic order. Chaos is more my friend, so part of my sabbatical is to get organized, get rid of stuff, sift through it all so I can see clearly. For anyone out there that teaches full time, you know what I am talking about. By the time I get home from teaching and being on my feet all day, the last thing I want to do is clean and organize. I just want to collapse in a bath and stay there for a long time with a glass of wine. Well, I tackled my garage first in order to create a working space for the year. You can see from this BEFORE photo, what my tile-filled garage looked like:

For years I would just open the garage door, close my eyes, and toss box upon box in there, quickly closing the door before I caught a glimpse of what I was creating! BUT NOW….now that I am on this sabbatical…….look what glorious TIME can do:

Oh yes! I have organized all the tiles by color. It’s so organized, it’s scary. I doubt this level of color coded efficiency will remain a constant in my life, but for now it feels great. I got rid of loads of stuff and finally feel I have a grasp on the inventory for the mosaic. Here’s some greens, some blues, yellows, and blacks! I am basking in the glory of this brief efficiency:

I held a workshop awhile back to make tiles for the mosaic in Echo Park. I wanted the community members to be involved so I held a free tile making workshop working with clay slabs.  The workshop was set up at the Echo Park Farmers Market that happens every Friday on Logan Street near where the mosaic will be installed.

The response was overwhelmingly positive! Many folks stayed for hours making many tiles in the shapes of corn, carrots, tomatoes, and other fresh vegetables and fruit. We made about 90 tiles all together and I will be holding a few more tile making workshops in the next few weeks. I love working with the community, seeing everyone taking some time to sit down with each other, talking, laughing, creating. I’m posting some photos from the day and some of the tiles in various stages.

The Echo Park Farmers Market takes place every Friday. They have a very generous offering of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as hand crafted items such as soap and candles. here’s their website for more information: echo-park-farmers-market

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Kate at Mission Tile in South Pasadena. Kate has donated thousands of tiles to my community projects and I can’t thank her enough. These are tiles that were slated to end up in landfills, but she puts them aside for me and I pick up a box or two every month.  I take the tiles I cannot use for mosaics over to Habitat for Humanity in Pasadena, so it is a win-win situation all around. With the tiles from Mission and the tiles from Heath plus various tiles I have purchased, I should have enough to start the mosaic in a week. It doesn’t look like it will ever rain again in LA, so the weather is on my side for sure! I miss seeing and hearing rain though. Need tile? Check out Mission tile. It is family owned and I love their generous spirit! http://www.missiontilewest.com/

I’m very excited to have Heath Tile on board with the mosaic project in Echo Park. I visited the Heath factory up in Sausalito last week to purchase some more green tiles. While I was there I left my business card and explained the project I am working on with the hopes I might get some tiles donated. The next day I received an email from Lisa Bookstein, Heath’s mosaic artist, saying she would be happy to donate Heath tiles to the project. I am a huge fan of Heath. This company has been around for many years and has a timeless style and grace to everything they create. I’ll be driving back up to Marin next week to meet with Lisa and I can’t wait to see what they can spare. I just like being near that place. It inspires me to see a company with values such as Heath still thriving, still making and creating objects in the U.S., and willing to share with the greater community. Edith Heath founded Heath Ceramics in 1948 and it is still going strong. For more info on Heath, go to:

http://www.heathceramics.com