Grout Grout Grout!

Our mosaic making workshop was fun and productive. Seven people made eleven mosaics at Gateway Ranch for the Temple of life. Royce set up a couple of 10' x 20' shade structures in front of the straw bale building. Tables and chairs were brought out and several crates and boxes of mosaic supplies were laid out so the participants could easily pick their favorite bits to put into their mosaics.

The weather was perfect on Saturday as we used thin-set mortar to attach broken tiles, dishes, stones, glass, mirror and metal onto pre-cut boards. Jana, Bill, and Royce made two mosaics each and Mark, Laura, Matt, Richard and Owen each laid out one mosaic.

We worked until nearly dark, had a wonderful pot-luck dinner and then all of us watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail later in the evening. Several of us knew many of the lines from the movie. It was fun.

Sunday we got a bit of a late start on grouting the mosaics. We had just gotten half to two-thirds of the way through the grouting process when a big wind came up and started to tear the shade structures apart. We had an emergency mosaic evacuation out from under the shaking shade structures and then proceeded to take the shade down so it all wouldn't be ruined by the escalating wind. We managed to finish grouting the mosaic that we started even though we were now exposed to full sun and the wind.

Those of us who made more than one mosaic had to postpone the grouting of our second mosaics to another time. Jana and Bill finished their grouting that evening - easy since they live there. Royce took his second mosaic home and will probably grout it tomorrow.

All the mosaics are awesome! It is great to see the diversity in design and vision represented. Once the last mosaics are grouted, we will have 23 of the 24 mosaics needed for the panels on the outside of the Temple of Life. The last mosaic needed will be created collaboratively by Bill and Jana. We will install them at our next work party which will be held June 29-30th.

There is a lot of space on and in the temple for assemblage art, including mosaic if people want to use that technique. Bill has measured all the walls inside the temple so we can make a map of the panels needed to decorate these walls. We have decided to drywall the upper part of the central tower so we can glue pieces of mirror onto it. The mirror will be applied so as to look like fat organic branches or waves. The idea is that the mirrors will reflect the light from the skylight and upper windows so as to create an infinite light effect as you look up. Around the "mirror branches" there will be space for gluing all sorts of assemblage materials.

We also discussed the roofing for the four wings that surround the central tower. It was decided that we should just buy metal roofing since it is really important to have good solid materials to keep the rain and snow from leaking in.

As mentioned above, the next work party will be June 29-30th. The plan is to put on the metal roofing, put the drywall on the upper inside walls, and run some wiring inside the walls so there can be electrical outlets for interior lighting. We will also attach all of the mosaics that we made at the two mosaic workshops. We have scheduled the July work party for July 13-14.

The temple belongs to the community that builds it. This is YOUR temple. Come on up and help! Many hands will make it go quickly.