Pool area seen from the second story.

Here it IS!!! I was so happy to visit the private mosaic installation we did last year. (‘We’ is Celina Vallarta, a fellow mosaic artist and Craig Lopez, mosaic artist and installer, along with his handy helpers.) I had not seen it since the wall and pool were finished, so I was waiting with great curiosity for almost a year to see how it turned out.

Read between the lines and you will see two ammonite fossils side-by-side, as if we are viewing them through slits in the hillside.

Ammonite wall with tree shadows

An unexpected surprise is how the pool ripples are reflected up onto the plain concrete between the mosaic panels, creating a moving, evolving scene over and through the mosaic.

See the reflected ripples in the tree shadow?

The homeowners envisioned a brightly-colored, but spare, design to harmonize with their modernist new home. Their tenacity in planning the entire project and insisting on challenging, but, gorgeous features throughout the home and lot, is admirable.

A ‘rolling view’, looking from one end to the other

View with the waterfalls turned off.

Here is a bit of close-up of one end, showing the style of laying the tesserae.

I used high-fired porcelain tile made by McIntyre of California.

My gratitude goes to the owners who selected me to work on this interesting and unique project. I must also mention that I loved working with Eric Jensen of Elgin Butler in Austin. He is the representative of both the McIntyre and Trikeenan tile lines, and he helped me through the selection process, pulling whatever I wanted to try, and making suggestions when I felt stumped.