Local Mosaic Moments

I LOVE seeing art around town. I love that in my town, Chico, CA, there is art on the buildings, in parking lots, on benches, on newspaper stands, around doorways, in parks, and many other places. I especially love when the art is mosaic, and my town has a plethora of them! This month's post is about three, what I will call, "mosaic moments" in my town. The purpose of this post is just to look at cool mosaics and to get you, my reader, to look around YOUR town and notice some mosaic moments! I want to let you know that I did not do any research on who the artists were or when these mosaics were installed.
Here is the first: It is located on a wall at my son's school:

To me, it looks like a river running along the length of the wall. Also, along the wall are these cool medallions. Here are some close-ups:

 Isn't that pretty? The wall has these opaque windows about 16" wide and 12" tall that run along the top half of the length of the wall. The river flows right through those windows!

A portion of one of the medallions.

The second mosaic moment can be found around the doorway of a cafe here in Chico, called Cafe Flo. For those who are in Chico, Cafe Flo can be found at 365 East 6th St. The style of mosaic around this doorway is what is known as pique assiette, which is French, and, according to Wikipedia means, "one who eats from others' plates". Basically it is broken dishes and figurines...

For me, the more unique the dishes and figurines used, the better! This doorway has some zany things to look at. I've made some things in this mosaic style, and it is fun because you can kind of just come up with your design as you go. Sort of "stream of consciousness mosaic". At least that is how I approached it.

My final mosaic moment I will share (for now- I may start posting some more mosaic moments on my Facebook page "Kim Finlan Mosaics"), can be found at the entrance to our Kohls. I like this piece because it is done on pillars, and the pillars are angled so that depending on what angle you are looking at, the artwork seems broken up, or as one. Check it out:

Here are some close ups of the bird and the sun:

I hope you have enjoyed looking at these mosaic moments! If you like to look at pictures of mosaics then you would really love the mosaic groups on Flickr. Collectively, they have thousands of pictures of mosaics (mine are in there too!). Go to www.flikr.com, sign up and sign in, and then go to "groups" and search "mosaic". You will see group after group of mosaic art. I am in the "flickr mosaic artists" group. That oughtta keep ya busy for awhile...