Creating a Mosaic in Media Borough

By Claire Brill, Community Artist

The greatest satisfaction of creating Handle With Care came when community members thrilled to the project. A worker from a nearby bank enthusiastically admired our progress when he came out for a smoke. After protesting for two weeks that he had no artistic talent and would only mess things up, he finally agreed to put on a couple tiles and walked off with a little swagger in his step. The director of an office overlooking the site became so inspired he invited his staff to piece tiles whenever they wanted to. The group wrote the business’ name on the concrete beneath “their” part of the mosaic, forever a little secret. Following my lead, people working on the wall welcomed any interested passersby to put on a tile or two or more. About halfway through the installation a group of three women added some pieces during their lunch hour. At the same time the next day they returned for more, saying how much they enjoyed the meditative process of piecing tiles. For the duration of the project these women came back often for what they termed “mosaic therapy”.