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Dad, 2005
Mosaics from the Mind's Eye
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June 2009 Featured Student Artist: Erin Rogers
Journey
One of my most blissful childhood memories is lying under the Christmas tree staring up through the pine needles at the glowing lights. They were like colored gems twinkling in an elfin universe that I imagined I could escape to. I tried to capture these secret worlds with my crayons, drawing all fantastical animals and monsters and waterfalls that were hidden there. In high school and college I discovered that art can be a powerful way of communicating about social and environmental justice. I relentlessly painted murals and banners and silkscreened t-shirts and flyers to end apartheid and save the redwoods.
Buck Rogers, Stained glass, 2005
Advanced Glass Cutting
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Nowadays I spend most of my time working to stop global warming, and making mosaics at my kitchen table at night. Like my elfin wonderland, the sparkling colored mosaic glass is an escape hatch from a troubled world. The poet Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a mandate that I love: "Conduct your blooming in the noise and the whip of the whirlwind." That's what making mosaics is to me — creating beautiful, shiny, glittering flowers that sprout up through the chaos of life.
Classes taken at IMA
Wedding Birdbath, 2006
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My first mosaic class ever was Glass Mosaics 101 in 2005 with Laurel. After recently arriving in California from Texas, I instantly knew I'd found home at IMA! My life has been immeasurably enriched by knowing and learning from Laurel True.
I next signed up for Lillian Sizemore's Mosaics of the Mind's Eye, which helped immensely in working through seemingly unbearable grief over my father's recent death. I also took Laurel's Advanced Glass Cutting class and a class with Sonia King, whose work I am constantly stunned by.
Ephemeral, 2008
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IMA
I will never forget my first class at IMA. In a matter of hours my life had been completely altered and I was off on a new path! I had acquired some simple but powerful knowledge — how to cut glass, make it stick to a substrate, and how to grout it (with glitter of course), and infused with the IMA joie de vivre. I haven't been able to stop making mosaics ever since.
Growth
I am constantly surprised at how much I learn about myself through the making of each new piece. I am learning to understand and have faith in my visions, instincts, manic bursts of passion, demons, and dark-sides. Usually the things I make just because I like them and they mean something to me are the things that everyone else likes, too.
Direction
I just want to keep making beautiful things that make me happy. I would love to work on some community projects or some more collaborative pieces.
Website
Lemontreemosaics.com
Brainwave, 2009 |
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