Beautiful mosaic mural for the community garden
Gloucestershire Archives commissioned mosaic artists Lynda Knott and Angela Williams (TomatoJack Arts) to create a mosaic mural for the Heritage Hub community garden illustrating the history of Gloucestershire.
The resulting public artwork takes the form of five mosaic panels.
During their visits to Archives Lynda and Angela were inspired by the strong room full of old maps and photographs. This sowed the seed for the basic design idea - a representation of an unfolded map.
As well as creating significant, inspiring pieces of community artwork Archives also wanted this collaboration of art and heritage to bring together different groups of people and encourage a better understanding of each others' history and lives. We also want to engage people with the Archives’ collections in new, different and unexpected ways.
With this in mind TomatoJack’s research included visits to care homes, gathering memories and photographs and speaking to Gloucestershire Local History Association's member groups and Gloucestershire Family History Society about ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘who’ should be included. Lynda and Angela were able to collect a huge amount of information including unique photographs and memories of architecture and buildings as well as records of events and activities.
Deciding the best way to reflect this rich diverse history TomatoJack decided to use the photographs themselves within the mosaic design by firing the images collected onto durable porcelain tiles. Although the majority of the mosaic was made in their studio in Berkeley we also had the pleasure of working with them at the Archives. Local people, visitors, volunteers young people from the Aston Project and staff were able to try their hand at mosaic and help make one of the panels.
The resulting site specific artwork details in traditional mosaic ceramic tiles the varied geographical features of our large county: towns and villages, motorways and railways, rivers and canals, woodland and forest, hills and contours. Each of the five panels features a ‘Focus Point’ representing a snapshot of different aspects of Gloucestershire’s history; Notable People, Events, Places, Industry and Everyday Life.
Gloucestershire Archives is also working with three other artists and as they complete their artwork we will feature their stories in future editions.
The project has been funded by Arts Council England. If you would like more information contact Kim Kenny at kim.kenny2@gloucestershire.gov.uk
