Blue Ridge Mountains Mosaics

As nature-lovers in Virginia, it’s no surprise we’re drawn to the iconic imagery of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Over the years Johannah has created a variety of mosaics featuring the mountains.

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Though we don’t hike these beautiful mountains as often as we’d like, we do try to get there a few times a year. Every single visit is such an inspiring and mind-clearing experience. Returning to the studio after one hike, Johannah developed the idea for a larger landscape of the mountains. This mosaic would include three panels and feature the rocky outcroppings so common to the Blue Ridge.

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Humpback Rocks, photo by NPS

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Blackrock Summit, photo by NPS

The basic composition Johannah had in mind included an outcropping and a pine tree, with the mountains in the distance beyond. While some ideas come to mind fully-formed, this one took a few twists and turns as it came into being. First it took a few tries to land on a way to illustrate the pine tree she found satisfying. Later, once the mosaic seemed complete, something still felt missing. She decided a mosaic frame around the three panels would pull it all together.

Pine tree attempt #1

Pine tree attempt #2

Pine tree attempt #3, success at last!

Almost done but something's missing...

A border pulls it all together.

The resulting mosaic landscape was included in our exhibit as guest artists of the month at Crozet Artisan Depot a few years ago. What better place to display this piece than a little town nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge!

"Forest Flora" custom mosaic series

Do you remember, early in the pandemic, when the government sent checks to help us hold out through those strange and frightening times? And do you remember the discussion that it was up to us to support the small businesses we valued, like book stores and hair stylists, to make sure they lasted?

This series is an example of one couple deciding artists were the ones they wanted to support with that check they received. Their regular income continued uninterrupted and they viewed that check as a bonus. By using those funds to purchase work from artists (aka small business owners) they could both enjoy that art in their home for years to come, as well as help ensure those businesses carried on into the future.

As the recipient of a commission from this couple, this work was welcome income during those fraught days. It was also meaningful to us, as artists and as a company, to know we were valued in that way. And in the days when we were restricted to our own homes and yards, it provided an opportunity to find respite in the great outdoors we so love from the safety of a computer.

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The patrons of this set are natives of the eastern United States. In moving to the Midwest, they had discovered an appreciation for the prairie environment. But they had also found they were missing the forests of their childhoods and early years as a couple. The goal of this series was to create a tactile and visual reminder of those woods.

The first piece in the series, “Into the Forest,” is the largest. Johannah wanted to convey both the cool darkness at the forest floor as well as the bright green chaos and light looking up through the tops of a trees. This piece is created in Mexican and gold smalti in a raw maple frame.

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The next three pieces are progressively smaller. With these pieces, we wanted to represent native plants and fungi found on the forest floor, specifically a mushroom, a flower, and a fern. Johannah and the clients chose the bright orange Cantharellus cinnabarinus mushroom, red and yellow Eastern Columbine flowers, and Ebony spleenwort for the fern. These pieces were created from hand-cut stained glass set in tinted black mortar, in a style inspired by a previous series depicting endangered flowers.

Endangered Native Virginia Flowers

Johannah’s latest mosaic series features endangered flowering plants native to our home state of Virginia as well as other parts of the eastern United States.

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Like the Nature series from last year, the Endangered Flowers series was inspired by the beauty of the natural world around us. This time, I wanted to speak more openly to the destruction and chaos we humans have inflicted on the world. And I wanted to stick close to home, explore my own backyard so to speak.

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As I researched native Virginia flowers, the same primary environmental threat kept popping up:  wetlands habitat loss. The four flowers I chose to represent are (L to R in photo) swamp pink, pitcher plant, American chaffseed, and Virginia sneezeweed. Each of these plants lives and grows in wetlands such as sandy coastal or boggy areas. There were many other plants to chose from, and most of them thrive in similar ecosystems.

As our built environment spreads ever outward and we continue to pave more of the earth’s surface, we both destroy natural wetlands and create ever-worsening flooding issues. Further, the retention ponds we create to replace wetlands are no true substitute for the plants and animals that live in those wetlands. We may have built ourselves a place to store the water we’ve displaced, but in the process we’ve destroyed an important part of the ecosystem. Even the current Environmental Protection Agency agrees that wetlands, like those other crucial but fragile systems, rainforests and coral reefs, are vital to life on earth due in great part to their tremendous biodiversity.

Like all our mosaics, the Endangered Flowers series is created with 100% reclaimed or environmentally sustainable and stable materials. A portion of the proceeds of the sale of this series will be donated to the Flora of Virginia Project.  Take a look below at a few work in progress shots as well as photos of the flowers themselves that inspired this series!

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Swamp Pink photo by US Fish & Wildlife Service

Pitcher Plant photo by Noah Elhardt

American Chaffseed by April Punsalan

Virginia Sneezeweed photo by Steve Croy

You can find the Endangered Flowers mosaic series as well as some of our other work in metal and mosaic in our shop.