100 times squared

Do you remember my post “10 times squared” a few weeks ago? There, I’ve told of the first experiments with the martellina and 10 squared tesserae we had to cut as first task here in school.

Now I actually heard from my design teacher that the first mosaic exercises for a freshman here in Spilimbergo a few years ago looked very different: The first semester actually consisted of cutting 100 tesserae of the exact height, width and depth of 1 cm. Not more and not less. Cheating didn’t work, because the pieces had to fit into a form made for this purpose. Without glueing them.

The second task of the first semester was to cut extremely exact triangles, quadrates and pentagons. That’s all you did in 5 months.

Honestly, I don’t know if these exercises would have been for me an incentive or deterrent. But I ‘m sure that one or the other left the school after a few weeks very disappointed. I’m glad that we may work less exactly and start other more engaging works already. And I even feel a bit spoiled.

Join the Conversation

5 Comments

  1. says: Justin

    Dear Miriam,

    I’m fascinated by this post. I assume that those concrete blocks are the forms into which the tesserae must fit. I’m curious, based on your first few exercises, what have you learned about creating perfect cubes (and triangle and pentagons) out of chunks of stone? Are there any tricks about how to begin?

    1. says: miriam

      Dear Justin, yes there are some tricks I could explain you! I will prepare a post regarding these. Thank you for this suggestion!

    2. says: miriam

      Dear Justin, I have just posted an article with some tricks regarding the efficient use of the mosaic hammer and hardie at http://bit.ly/1m04Nd0. Please let me know what you think about it. I hope my suggestions are helpful!

Leave a comment
Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.