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Sanded grout should always be used if you have more than 1/4″ thickness between your objects. Mix the dry grout with water to the consistency of oatmeal. If it’s too soupy it will run down your wall and take forever to dry. Too thick and it will crumble and dry too quickly. You can always add water to your mixture as you use it.

I don’t have a surefire easy method for grouting around various thicknesses of objects. It is slow and messy. Check out the various pottery utensils available in art supply stores. You can use all sorts of tools to push the grout between the objects – small spatulas, knives, spoons, and your fingers. Experiment to find what works best for you.

I applied the grout in approximately a 3′ by 3′ section at a time. It’s important to start cleaning away the excess grout before it becomes too dry. Cleaning up the grout is tedious. If you start when it’s too wet you will take too much off and have to reapply. Have one clean water bucket and a dirty water bucket to go back and forth with sponges. I used a stiff paint brush to scratch away a lot of the excess grout before resorting to wet sponges. Carefully smooth the grout around each of the objects leaving enough grout to keep each piece secure.

Beautiful mosaics are about the overall design, and beautiful workmanship is always evident in the application of the grout.

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Turning "junk" into art: sorting by color

I mean, seriously, how hard could it be?

The fact that my friend Nancy and I had no experience creating mosaics was never a deterrent.  In retrospect, however, I would advise someone attempting a mosaic for the first time to start on a smaller project before embarking on a thirty foot long wall. Do as I say, not as I do, right? In my case however, ignorance was bliss.

My contractor, HHCC, built the walls and covered them with hardie board which is the same material you would use behind any tiled surface. Do not try to create a mosaic on top of sheet rock. The combination of wet grout and weight of the mosaic is a recipe for disaster. Tear out the sheet rock and put up hardie board in it’s place.

The word went out to friends, family, neighbors and associates: Do NOT throw anything away. Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled junk yearning to breathe free. Your trash = a new life as Berry Austin art. For months we collected all kinds of stuff not knowing how, or if, it would work. Then came the task of organizing. With a huge variety of recyclable items, I found it helpful to sort items by color rather than type of item.

Heavier items need to be taped in place while the mastic dries.

Once all the “junk” was organized into boxes, I drew a rough sketch on the wall of how I wanted the color to move across the mosaic. Then it was a matter of placing the objects on the wall. I put the bigger pieces up first, working from largest to smallest. The adhesive I used is extra strength Mastic – the same adhesive used on standard tile installations. If an item was particularly heavy I would add masking tape to secure overnight until dry. Color and composition is really important at this stage. It can easily morph into a jumbled mess without planning.

Surprisingly – designing and attaching the objects on the wall was the easiest part of the process. Once everything is in place, the next step is grouting. It took as long – if not longer – than the amount of time to put up the entire mosaic. It’s messy. It’s goopey. It’s the dirtiest part of creating a mosaic.

About the Grout: the topic of the next blog.

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When I developed the initial concept for Berry Austin one of my goals was to use as many recycled materials as possible. From the very beginning the earliest little seeds of inspiration included thoughts of how I could incorporate recycling into the overall design. That is one of the reasons why I had no interest in opening a national frozen yogurt franchise. I needed to have creative license to grow my idea from the ground up. I come from a family where recycling is looked upon as a responsibility. I learned at an early age that it is everyone’s responsibility to take care of the earth we live in. As children, my siblings and I would pick up discarded soda cans.  This was in a time when aluminum cans was pretty much all that was recycled on a community wide basis. My Dad would drive the full bags of cans down to the recycling center. To this day I find it impossible to put something in the trash that can be somehow reused.

So making something from materials that can be reused or recycled into something bigger and better became my mantra while creating the look and feel

Collecting "junk"

of Berry Austin. Fortunately, I have very creative friends that inspire me. When I was struggling with what type of material to use on the walls, Nancy Johnson, a good friend and amazing artist I met in graduate school, suggested creating a mosaic. I wasn’t excited about buying new tile. The idea finally gelled when we realized I could use recycled materials in the mosaic rather than the traditional tile or glass.  Why not put a pot lid on the wall? Better yet – a discarded pot lid that had become separated from the pot and no longer served any useful purpose – Eureka! Although Nancy and I both had art backgrounds, the fact that neither of us had ever done a mosaic was never a deterrent. I mean, really, how hard could it be? I’ll let you know in my next blog: The continuation of “Ignorance is bliss.”

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