Finished Pool More or Less (Piscina è Quasi Completato)

Even in Texas, it was too cool today to go swimming, and so it was that today was the day I finally moved off my laz the pool photos off of my camera. You can see my own version of a typical line of cypress trees in the background here. I keep thinking I should have bought larger ones, but the selection and quantity of the larger ones was severely limited. I'm also wondering if I should plant forward in between each tree to make a solid tree line. Also, I'm seeing life sized hand carved marble statues on either side of the spa. Or maybe just a gigantic hand and head reaching skyward, as if a giant statue was buried in the ground... No that would be lame, two statues it is.

Luckily, since the contractor would work with me a bit, they poured the deck substrate down about 5/8" to the coping stone. This will allow an anti fracture membrane to go on and also a healthy 1/2" thick tile that has a pre-cut (read: not much work for me) pattern. Unfortunately now though, I have substandard choices for the marble, so maybe I'll find something in Italy at the end of the month. I have to finish it fairly soon though as the building permit will run out and I'll have to file for an extension or something. Maybe some friends on the city council can help out if I drag it on too long? Nah, I'll be done before then.

Basically, I now have a 110 meter empty canvas to 'paint' on with marble and mosaics. It. is. cool.



















Here is a side view of the steps to see how the mosaics catch the sun, even under water.
















Here is one of them up close... I didn't realize that I was blatantly ripping off the Caesar's Palace logo until after it was done (Apologies to Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. But honestly, I left more than enough compensation on your roulette table this past March, guaranteed).















And here is yet another picture... Are you bored yet?















Everybody can stop by for a swim (best bring a wetsuit since it's a bit cool now).

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Non credo che è quasi finito! Purtroppo in Texas, trovo che l'acqua si raffredda in autunno. Ho bisogno di comprare qualche famoso marmo di Carrara (ma non questa pietra economici ho campioni di altri luoghi).

What? I Can't Hear Because of Water In My Ears (Che Cosa? Acqua Della Piscina è Nelle Orecchie)

One of the following photos is a picture of part of my pool.
Is it:
A.

B.

C.

D.

Does anyone know what all the above pools are? Any of them? Bueller? Bueller?
If you guessed 'D' you are not incorrect. At least you get a sense of how the custom gold mosaics shine in the sunlight.

Apologies for no complete pictures yet, but I've been busy swimming, landscaping, and stuff so I haven't had time to take a proper photo.

I've been planting authentic Cupressus Sempervirens (Italian cypress) along the fencelines. When I started digging the first hole in the mid-afternoon, I said to myself, 'Self, I'll surely have these six trees planted before dark.' Well that was before the spade I was using made a scraping sound across the bottom of the hole.

I thought for sure that I had found some old Civil War era treasure chest, or at least some 180 year old canned goods or something useful. But, no such luck, it was a rock-like clay that I can probably best describe as shale. You have heard of the Earth's crust? Well I had found one of the crunchier sections of it. I saw this as a good opportunity to drag out my ten pound sledge hammer and a crowbar (and even some goggles to shield the eyes from the flying rock chips). Does anyone else type 'Googles' when trying to type 'goggles'? Luckily, this strata of geological botanical prophylactism was easily pierced and the trees were quickly planted.

Some genuine gold leaf is now on order for the gilding of my carved sign letters, but not before I'll be painting an authentic cinnabar (red mercuric sulfide) and linseed oil primer to make the gold leaf shine.
Maybe you are contemplating the fancying up of a garden gnome or plastic flamingo outdoors? If that's the case, you should use genuine gold leaf. Typical gilding leaf found in stores in the US is what they call 'Dutch Metal', which will corrode when exposed to the weather (no offense Dutch Donut Girl).

You can also buy a variety of gold leaf that is called 'double', which is ironically only 10% thicker than regular gold leaf, but will last for a very long time. I guess there is something to the expression 'Giving 110%'.
I wonder what cheap pikey fellow came up with 'double' to describe +10% where gold is concerned?

Also on my mind lately are recreations of ancient couches with outdoor cushions. I'm working on carving couch legs (I'll need 12 of them for three couches).
The bronze they'll be cast in will need to be around 3mm thick according to UK sculpture expert Ailsa Magnus (check out her enormous iron balls).

That much bronze will still be fairly heavy for 16" tall legs with a 1.5" diameter and cross supports for the wood I'm going to connect it to. The endgame with the couches is to have three in a 'U' shape, which is a classical 'Triclinium'. The triclinium was how dining went down 2000 years ago, but I'll probably just put a fire pit on a mosaic pavement and have everyone drink wine there.

Have a great weekend and I'll really be posting more complete pictures soon (seriously, really, I promise).

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Riuscite a indovinare l'immagine della mia piscina?

C'è una foto di tre divani voglio fare (triclinium antiche)

Sigillum Salomonis (Nodo di Salomone)

First of all, I wanted to thank anyone who might have called the Vatican this weekend and put in some good words for me, maybe called in some favors or something like that, because I have approval now to go on the Scavi Tour to see the gravesites under St. Peter's Cathedral!

This has been another busy weekend of mosaic making. I'm in a race with the contractor to finish my 'step spotter' mosaics. In addition to cups and grape leaves I've added lyres, which are harp-like things, basically the 'electric guitar' of 2000 years ago. I wonder if bands back then smashed their lyres after the concerts?

Also new are tridents (which are uncomfortably close to looking like dinner forks), and a close copy of an ancient 'Solomon knot' (top step, the one with interlocking links). You can kind of get a sense of what I have in mind for the layout with the picture below.

The photo below is of a 1700 year old 'Solomon knot' I took in an Italian cathedral. In my mosaic copy I stayed very true to these colors, using blue jasper and other semiprecious and rare stones.

The Solomon knot, or 'sigillum Salomonis' if you are MJenks / native Latin speaker, is a very old symbol. I like to think of it as the world's first 'M.C. Escher' style drawing. But, maybe a very simple 'For Dummies' style version of Escher?

It is found across many ancient and somewhat unrelated cultures. To some, it is supposed to signify eternity. To others, faith across all religions. The symbol has been associated of course with a King Solomon in the Bible, a son of King David. According to the account there, Solomon descended into some bad behavior and paid the price for it with the breakup of his kingdom.

Jumping to a completely different subject, and this is a bad picture, but my marble sign has been set in the spa wall (the stone around it is wet and appears darker, normally it is bright white plus the sun wasn't casting shadows on the letter the right way).

I was so paranoid it was going to get dropped or something right before it was done. But it's all good now. I'm entertaining the idea of gilding the insides of the letter forms or maybe casting actual bronze letters like they did 2000 years ago, but I think I'll wait until everything is done before I do that.

Glass (Vetro)

In deciding on a Venice itinerary for this fall, I made plans to stop by the famous Domus Orsoni in sestiere Cannaregio. This place makes the best glass pieces for mosaics, and is also famous for their gold leaf crystal. They have nice rooms to stay in, but there are more luxurious places with balconies and terraces on the Grand Canal.















But check out the great golden shower you can get in guest room four at Domus Orsoni...




















I used some of this same 24k Orsoni gold leaf glass in some 3" mosaics I'm making for the new pool to be constructed. The contractor asked if I wanted 'step spotting' tiles so drunk uncoordinated visitors wouldn't fall whilst getting into or out of the pool. Being the hands-on type of guy I am, I decided to make several small mosaics as 'step spotting' tiles and just have those set in instead of boring one color tiles. I'd cover the whole bottom of the pool myself if I had the time, but I want to do the decking and probably carve some statues in carrara marble. So, maybe I'll just let that 'ultimate mosaic' pool part of the dream go for now.

Here is one of the mini-mosaics using gold Orsoni glass, marble and a bit of porpyry in a picture taken from atop a ten story parking garage downtown to make it more dramatic. *dramatic music plays*

















Glass making in the Venice area has a long and profitable history. It has been made there for around 1000 years. From master craftsman to apprentice, the secret recipes of silica, lime, sodium oxide, arsenic, nitrate and coloring agents (or manganese oxide in the case of clear glass) in just the right proportions and in the correct order of processing have been handed down.

One of the Venice glass companies, Barovier & Toso, was formed in 1295 AD. They probably have one of the oldest corporate websites in the world too.

Hopefully, after Luciana's class in Ravenna this Fall, mosaic making with glass and smalti won't be so foreign to me compared with stone and marble. I tried using Leponitt cutters for the first time on the gold glass pieces on Sunday, and it was difficult. Leponitts are spring loaded pliers with two glass cutting wheels that come together to score the glass. Of course, I was using them more like tile nippers, handily crushing the glass underneath.





















If you want to check out a modern glass artisan, go to Valerie's blog because she knows more about it than I ever will. Maybe I can pay Valerie to kiln up some smalti so I don't have to lug back 100kg of glass on the plane?

Does anyone else like the iridescence that occurs on ancient Roman glass? After thousands of years, some of the elements such as copper based impurities float to the surface of the glass giving it the rainbow and shimmer effect. It always amazes me that there is so much Roman glass left, what with glass being breakable and the ancients living with stone floors. Maybe it's thicker?

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Ho fatto i mosaici per i scale della piscina. Usato lo smalti oro di Orsoni, lo spero non rende ciechi a causa del sole.