Europe

=__ Pebble Mosaics __= are found all over Europe. Click on this picture to see more examples from Italy and Spain. and in the UK .... Maggy Howarth is the "Mistress of Pebble Mosaics" check out her website here: [] she does commissions, public projects, runs workshops and has How-to DVDs for sale

= ITALY - the home of MOSAICS = = Pompeii Mosaics = Though most of the walls are quite drab and grey now, originally they would have been covered in fabulously coloured murals and mosaics of precious stones, such as blue lapis, tourquise etc. I was amazed at how badly maintained some of the mosaic floors were. I just wanted to sweep them clean and let them be seen in their full glory. The view from Pompeii to Mt.Vesuvius. This sleeping giant looks so innocent now, but in 79 AD, it erupted and totally enveloped the town of Pompeii in rubble and ash,and killed all the inhabitants. But also, ironically, it preserved much of the ruins, which, had they not been covered in ash for so long, would surely have been totally demolished by man over the intervening years.

Modern Mosaics in Rome
in Metro stations and this amazing mural called "Guernica" (a mosaic representation of the famous Picasso painting of the same name) was created by the students of the Mosaic School of Friuli. I stumbled upon it in a small piazza, when exploring the narrow streets of Rome. Click here to see more of my [|photos] of it.

= THE TAROT GARDEN = in Tuscany, ITALY - 100km NW of Rome by French born artist **NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE**: ...again, one of those places that I really want to visit

= FRANCE =

= LA MAISON PICASSIETTE - Chartres, FRANCE = In September 2016, at last I got to visit this amazing place - created last century by Raymond Isidore. While I was taking my time examining each tiny detail of the house, my partner, Colin, waited very patiently. He'd picked up a glossy book from the little ticket office and was looking through it. Suddenly he exclaimed - "Hey, guess what?? Raymond was born on the same day as you, 8th September!!!" What a co-incidence, I thought. No wonder I'm driven to cover every surface with mosaics, just like Raymond did with his house, inside and out .... and the furniture, the courtyard, garden sheds, garden path, garden walls and statues within the garden.

Raymond Isidore was born in 1900 and worked as a moulder in a foundry and later as a roadmender. In 1924, he married his wife, Adrienne, who was 11 years older than Isidore, and already had 3 children. He began building his house in 1930. Around 1938, he started to decorate the interior of the house, and while you can not enter the house, you can see their living room, kitchen and bedroom from the doorways. Indeed, every surface is covered with mosaics and murals, even a treadle sewing machine, which is featured in an old black and white photo, showing his wife sitting at it, and sewing. I think she must have been a very tolerant woman. I imagined that if she stood still for too long, she'd have been mosaiced herself :-) Between 1945 and 1951, he decorated the courtyard and outside walls of the house. He used a lot of found white crockery for the motifs and the background was often made from green bottle glass. All was adhered with grey cement. From 1953 he built and decorated more outbuildings and in 1956, he bought the adjacent block of land on which he created another courtyard. Finally, between 1958 and 1962, he constructed the enclosing wall and garden porch, decorated the garden and then built the Spirit's Tomb. In the latter part of his life, he worked as the caretaker at the nearby cemetery. On 7th September, 1964, he died, one day short of his 64th birthday. He grave is in the nearby cemetery, and ironically, has no mosaics on it!!



Video story about this amazing mosaiced house