GetOut Magazine

Mosiac artist is a glass act
BY GERI KOEPPEL
Get Out
Nov. 18, 2002

Most artists start out with a vision. Nancy Gilbert began making mosaic art to unwind.

"It's entertaining and therapeutic," she says. "I started by going to thrift stores and buying pottery and plates and smashing them. It was very cathartic. It was a good stress-releaser."

Gilbert, a science teacher at Mesa Junior High School, took the broken dishes and reassembled them on top of plates, mirrors and small tables to form images of gardens and dragonflies, oceans and dolphins. Her husband, Christopher Gilbert, displays the plates at his bakery/café, The Flour Garden, on Main Street in downtown Mesa. They run about $25 and up.

Gilbert contends that anyone can do mosaics. "This stuff hides any mistakes, so it doesn't have to be perfect," she says, "and that's the beauty of it for those of us who aren't meticulous."

She admits, though, that it can be painful. "You cut yourself a lot with the glass," she says. "Mostly it's when I'm grouting. I find I have to use my hands to smooth everything out, so I rub my hands across the glass."

Besides steady hands, though, there aren't a lot of requirements to making mosaics. All you need are glass clippers, glass cutters, pliers, glue, grout and colored glass, which Gilbert now buys from Artistry Stained Glass in Scottsdale.

But the inspiration is what transforms the tiny glass shards into beauty. Gilbert is fond of the ocean motif because, she says, "I always found the ocean peaceful and wonderful, and I'm fascinated by dolphins and whales. Those are comforting thoughts to me."

Dragonflies are another common theme. "I had done some random designs and wanted a focus," says Gilbert, so she asked her son, Matthew, 23, for ideas. He simply said, "Mom, make a dragonfly."

Now, dragonflies constitute some of her most successful pieces, including a small multicolored accent table and a half-moon console table done in iridescent green glass with black and ivory. Both grace her sitting room and are not for sale.

She also keeps a set of three plates in her kitchen featuring fish blowing bubbles, and she made a small mirror frame for her daughter, Annabelle, 18, that says, "The Beatles" in red mosaic along with a mosaic green apple.

One of her most unusual pieces is a plate with a mosaic of a carbon atom and its protons, neutrons and electrons. "In class I make (students) draw their own Bohr models," she says, "so I bring this in to inspire them."

Plate designs on display and for sale at the Flour Garden include dragonflies, a lighthouse, sailboat, fish and two hearts with a rainbow. Gilbert will do special orders, but since she does mosaics in her spare time, it takes her a while to finish them.

"These pieces are really very personal to me and they take a long time to do and they're from my heart," she says. "It's like giving a piece of yourself away."

IF YOU GO

What: Mosaic art by Nancy Gilbert
Where: Flour Garden, 156 W. Main St., Mesa
When: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
Info: Flour Garden, ; Nancy Gilbert,