GROWTH group show

This group show has been such a phenomenal experience! We worked with four other artists to create the work for this show, then installed it in a gallery at Crossroads Art Center. Though we didn't design any of the work collaboratively, it all flows together beautifully. The colors, the styling, the mood... right down to patterns and texture.

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We called our show GROWTH in honor of the new spring and the natural themes and materials in much of the group's work. The show features the work of six artists:

• furniture maker & designer Christina Boy

• ceramic artist Maria Stone

• muralist Emily Herr of Herr Suite

• blacksmith & furniture designer Kyle Lucia of Phoenix Handcraft

• textile artist Emily Nicolaides and

• mosaic artist Johannah Willsey of Phoenix Handcraft.

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GROWTH will be up at Crossroads for two more weeks. All the work in the show is for sale. If you are local to Richmond and haven't had a chance to stop by, you have until May 8. This show is best experienced in person, so stop by if you can! Crossroads is open 10-6 M-Sat and 12-4 on Sundays. If you go, let us know what you think!

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Jepson Hall Mosaic

Earlier this year we were commissioned to create a portrait of Jepson Hall, one of the buildings on the beautiful University of Richmond campus, as a retirement gift. 

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The biggest challenge with this piece was working the detail of the building into the relatively small space of the mosaic. In the end, Johannah decided to let the grout serve as the white stone elements. This meant working with three different grout colors altogether, which in turn meant lots of taping off between colors!

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In this angled image, you can see that the building was created from flat, unglazed porcelain while the sky in the background and landscape in the foreground were created from shiny glass. Below, the finish piece in the reclaimed walnut frame made by Kyle.

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More custom coat racks

Time for another round-up of some of our recent favorite custom mosaic coat racks! If you'd like to see more examples, check out other blog posts here, here, and here.

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This client approached us about using doorknobs in place of our usual hand-forged hooks. She provided the doorknobs, as well as fabric, paint, and wallpaper samples from the two rooms where her coat racks would hang. We made the frames a bit wider to accommodate the knobs. The wider profile really shows off the gorgeous reclaimed walnut!

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A six-hook custom coat rack in blue and green in progress.

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Sometimes clients just have a particular color in mind, but usually they have some other ideas as well. For the coat rack on the left, the client requested a plus symbol, handmade by Kyle, to be incorporated into the mosaic. For the piece on the right, that client wanted a re-creation of an earlier, smaller coat rack in a larger size.

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The special request for this six-hook mosaic coat rack was to give the piece a masculine feel for a single man.

To order your own custom mosaic coat rack, stop by our shop or send us an email!