Finishing

The Oak Tree reveals the school within it's trunk. 

Still in progress the Little Fish begins to shine as he leaps up the (wall) waterfall.

More grout required but getting there, the Dandelion Clock.

The day of the opening and some of the 'Victorian' teachers proudly checkout the Oak Tree for their Friday-afternoon hand made butterflies!

The third Honey Bee flies across the Oak Tree heading for the giant Dandelion or is she going for a drink in the fish's pool? (all worker honey bees are female)

Close up of the children's leaves and acorns showing the stained grout effect. 

                             

You Are Here

Working out the lines of Yin & Yang - not there yet!

The final two mosaics are maps and sit on the opposite walls to the more natural scenes. 

I always intended to include a plan of the school, incorporating the various stages of the building's evolution. As I remember, during my time at Glago the building still had the Victorian outside loos, which were interestingly, directly on the site of the new extension!  While considering evolution, the symbolism required the inclusion of 125 years of children in some way and while i wanted to be decorative, the spiraled 'ribbons' of human DNA introduced themselves to me and stayed as the beautiful twisted border of a circle (cycles). Now the main consideration was how to use the pattern of tiles to work the background. The word 'background' brought to mind the energy of creation, the Background Presence and after exploring spirals and flower patterns up popped the Yin & Yang. Perfect. The ups and downs of life's journey once again, those trials and tribulations that make us stronger and build our confidence with encouragement and support. Honey Bee number two was happy to do a 'fly past' in honour of nature and give the children something to count. Lovely.

I've always loved maps that tell me 'You Are Here' and find it amusing to consider that the plan points to a position that I occupied as a school-child, as an adult artist and also within the Yin & Yang journey of life in terms of the image symbolism. This shot taken while we cleaned off the brown paper backing.

This finished and polished up image clearly shows  all the design elements and picks out the large quantity of opalescent tiles that I've utilised throughout all the mosaics, which serve to reflect even the smallest amount of light that comes into the interior space.

The orange outline in the plan represents the original building, the purple~grey the next stage of extensions, and the new build is marked out on dark blue at the top. The children will be able to work out how they use the building, where they go etc from the position of the Hall and the Mosaics in the Undercroft.

Atalanta & the Map of Scarborough 

~ a Real Life Adventure

(All images are reversed until installation)

Draws inspiration from the Edward Bawden Map for the Pavilion Hotel (1931) held and now permanently and prominently displayed at Scarborough Library. Incidentally the Bawden map inspired the first piece of collage artwork I had displayed at Gladstone Rd..

Life is and adventure. We can never know everything. Maps contain things we recognise and many things we don't. Life follows this pattern and if we embody the adventurous spirit of our inner small child we will continue to find each day has new and often amazing discoveries for us! Even if you stay in one place ~ LOVE LIFE it's colourful.

Detail of the rainbow jewel~like spirals, representing that which is to be discovered in life. Embracing everything good or bad ~ there is no difference, we can learn from everything.

Bottom section completed showing reversed; Scarborough Spa, Spa Bridge and The Grand Hotel
This mosaic map was inspired by the Edward Bawden Map of Scarborough in Scarborough Library, and my own experience of amazement and fascination at seeing my first map of the town after moving here aged 8. The map at the time was displayed in the then entrance to the Children's Library and is now after considerable restoration work, on prominent display upstairs in the Library's Crush Hall.

The little girl's name is Atalanta ~ the Greek warrior Goddess of adventure, she was a great runner and was turned into a lion by Aphrodite.

She wears the Gladstone Rd Infants School uniform. She is outside the frame of the picture but still part of it via her beautiful blue shoes.

The Great Oak Tree (of Life)

The Great Oak Tree is finished and waiting stacked carefully, ready for the installation. The ceramic leaves and acorns made by the children will be laid directly into the adhesive when the whole piece goes into place at the end of the month! So near..

I brought the works and everything back to my rather full, lovely house as the holidays were imminent. The consequence is, I now have little in the way of a living room but at least nobody minds and I can work on the panels whenever I need to!

The Bee Lines continue and may well lead to several honey bees!

The Great Oak Tree symbolises Gladstone Road Infants School. And pictorially the colouring of the bark of the tree and the beautifully vivid Victorian red bricks are interpreted together, with the cutting of the tiles being what differentiates. Odd Dandelion Seed from the first 'clock' (time being the journey) drifts gently across the sky around. A small dandelion flower is a reminder of the origin of the seed and links to the oaks leaves and acorns.

                                                 

In this shot one gets an idea of the scale of this particular mosaic panel!

The Oak Tree begins to be revealed as he brown paper is washed away.

The finished Oak Tree with stained grout, featuring the small dandelion and upwardly mobile Bee line.

Upstream by my Own Volition but in the Flow of Life

The little Fish asserts his independence trusting that the universe will guide him. The leaves and acorn to the left are ceramic and will be inserted in situ.

The Journey of a Trout Upstream

As Streams from Little Fountains Flow...

The next mosaic has been underway for a while and is now nearing completion.  

I was keen to include all the elements essential to life in the series of mosaics and this one offered an opportunity to balance fire and water as the orange/red Sun with the pool and waterfall into the stream.

The leaping of the small 'trout' to the next phase of his life upstream holds much symbolism, because although it's important for us to be contributors to our families and community we can only truly fulfill our potential by finding and being true to ourselves , by following the gifts that nature has given us.

Encouragement, support and guidance during our life's journey we hope comes from all around us especially from school and at home, but can come from the most surprising of places at times. Even perhaps in seeing an image on a wall of a little fish leaping up to find his way in the stream that is life. 

The Sun makes an appearance with the spiraling energy of nature.

The challenge of firing nearly 700 little leaves and acorns has been put on hold for a time.  But I have devised and started building a number of specially designed stands for the task so that each individual piece, I hope, will be able to be fired together and yet NOT stick together! Bring on those buckets of glaze!

Great Oaks from Little Acorns Grow

'As streams from little fountains flow, Great oaks from little acorns grow'

The next image in the series of 'Journeys' mosaics has got underway. In these three weeks every child in the Infant School (around 360!) and a number of teachers will have made a personal, small clay contribution to the Oak Tree, in the form of clay oak leaves and acorns and the odd butterfly.  The children have almost without exception have grasped the concept of being artistically represented in this way and even the notion that the school can be thought of as a tree! Surprising for some, but the analogy of school being a place for learning and growing has been a useful one. The children have very much enjoyed their involvement and it's been a real joy working with them in this way! 

The mountains of leaves and acorns now waiting to be fired and glazed is only a little daunting but are going to look fantastic within the finished piece, I'm certain!

Thank you to the staff involved in the ferrying around of small children, especially TA Sam Barnes!

Time passes but the seasons always return

The making of this first piece has been a journey in itself with only the final stems to 'ground' the piece, to complete the picture. Conversely, the image has grown from the top downwards the opposite direction to nature. 
From a personal development perspective we experience growth in a far more random pattern - the growing of consciousness and learning comes when our 'teacher', which may be a person or simply a given experience, triggers our inspiration.


It is perhaps by looking back to where we started, that provides a different perspective of any journey, when we see the true colour of things past and feel our feet on the ground for the next part.

T. S. Eliot
	Little Gidding V
	"We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, remembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; "

Personal Honey Bee

The honey bee is set to the dandelion and as many surrounding flowers and trees as will be flowing with nectar. She is working so hard for the good of the colony, she will fly around 500 miles in her lifetime she will produce less than half a teaspoon of honey. As the mosaic progresses her flight and destination will be able to be followed, her determination and commitment relatively unrecognised.

Week 3: 'Energy never disappears it only ever changes form'

The above title was the most exciting thing any physics teacher ever told me; once heard this has resounded in my life, every so often resurging - as energy itself. The breeze, swirling gently around the Dandelion clocks, not only gathers up and sweeps the seed away to it's new destination but brings fresh air - a wind of change, of the 'next season', the future on it's way.
This blog is a journey on the theme of Journeys. Each step of the way, each cutting and placing of a row of tiny tiles constitutes for me, stepping stones of personal journeys; not only to the completion of each large panel but symbolically in the 125 years of the Gladstone Rd infants, their school and personal development, which includes my own.

Dandelion and Bee progress: The worker honey bee with her (bee line) flight trail behind her and her head stuck firmly into the pollen of the Dandelion has (partly because I am a bee keeper) taken on a more personal significance.

5 celebratory Mosaics on the theme of 'Journeys' - Number 1 'A Dandelion Releases it's Seed on the Wind'

‘I aim to evoke our experience of boundaries, borders, intersections and connection points, where times change and sections separate. These are vital in order to evaluate beginnings and endings, the microcosm and macrocosm of nature and experience.

The natural environment is my strongest influence with evidence of past human habitation and personal development. In a harmonious celebration, my work brings the past and present together with unique results.’

gabriellenaptali.com

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I was really interested in the project firstly because of the positivity of the school reaching the grand age of 125 years and still continually evolving and rolling with the times;  teaching, encouraging and supporting so many children with such creative and inspiring teachers and staff and secondly but because I went to Gladstone Rd Primary School and my younger sister Clare went to the Infant School way back in 1972 when we first arrived in Scarborough. The school has changed so much in those years (we had outside toilets!). I remember my first artistic display on the corridor wall being such an honour. So here I am again, 30 odd years later, able to contribute something special and bring my own creative improvements, adding another dimension to the childrens' school life, that I hope will continue to inspire the children and other viewers for many years to come. 


Gabrielle Naptali