Back From Florida!

I love Florida. I know it's an endless sprawling strip mall, but there are still parts that are beautiful. And it's warm. I had a great time at my mosaic workshop. I was learning to use the hammer and hardie (essentially a hammer and chisel) to cut the smalti pieces into tine bits to arrange on the board. Smalti is basically glass that is poured into "tortillas" (Mexican smalti) or "pizzas" (Italian smalti) and then cut into tiny rectangles which you can then cut even smaller. Because of the nature of the process, there is a great deal of variation in the color and texture of each piece, giving it a wonderful textural appeal and jewel tone colors. The idea with smalti (vs. glass traditional glass tile) is that you place the pieces very close together and then you don't really need to grout the piece, so you eliminate the distraction of the spacing. That combined with the fact that you can cut the pieces into tiny bits, allows for a lot more detail without having to make the pieces themselves huge, which was kind of the direction I had been heading in. It's nice to be able to work with a more manageable size and not compromise the detail and color tonality. I had a fantastic time. It was weird for me to be on my own for a week, but I loved it. I missed home of course, but it was like I was leading a secret life for a week. Nice. Of course, I had a bit of a cold during the week, and just when I thought I was getting better, BAM! I get the flu. I think I caught it on the plane coming home. Anyway, it laid me out for several days, and of course Marc got it. We were out of work Monday and Tuesday, but were back by Wednesday. So, now it's back to the grind so to speak. I did buy a hammer and hardie and some tile from Michele, so that should be shipping here soon. Something told me they might have a problem with bringing a carbide-tipped hammer in my carry on luggage.