Mountainfilm in Telluride: Wilderness Joy from Artist’s Perspective

27 Apr Mountainfilm in Telluride: Wilderness Joy from Artist’s Perspective

Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage from small pieces of colored glass, stone and other materials such as ceramic tiles for decorative purposes generally inside a home or church. The technique has been around for centuries: examples abound in pre-Islamic Persia, ancient Rome, and early Jewish and Christian cultures. Mosaics dominated church art throughout the Italian Renaissance and Baroque eras (16th and 17th centuries), but the art form is still going strong today.

Flair Robinson is a self-taught mosaic and assemblage artist, who works primarily with hand-cut ceramic tile, glass, and recycled junk. She is first and foremost a colorist, fascinated by the kaleidoscopic combinations of color possible in her medium. Flair constantly seeks new and different variations on the theme of color mixing and finds inspiration in vintage advertising, old road-side signs and attractions, carnival games and fabric. She gets high taking bits and pieces of nothing and turning them into something – such as the 2014 Mountainfilm in Telluride Award.

Mountainfilm Award, by Flair Robinson

Below is Flair’s blog about creating the award.

When I was asked to make the awards for Mountainfilm 2014, I was thrilled about taking on a new challenge. But as always with new opportunities, the excitement soon waned and madness set in. My inner voices whispered, “Why the hell are you taking this on?” and “You don’t know a thing about making an award.” And the scariest one nailed it: “What, exactly, are you going to create?” That anxiety continued for at least a week with sleepless nights and unwelcome inner voices — a kind of temporary insanity that is part of my creative process.

As I turned over Mountainfilm’s 2014 theme of “wilderness” in my head, I begin to see a little ray of light through the clouds. This is something I know — something I know well because the forest has been my friend for many years. When I was a kid growing up in Missouri, I spent every free moment in the woods. Days would go by before seeing someone near my secret hideout. If it was summer, I would soak my feet in the creek and lay back on the warm mossy rocks, my eyes closed, perfectly safe and happy to be in my own world among the turtles, tadpoles and big beautiful trees. This was joy, so “wilderness joy” would become my creative theme. I would use the trees as inspiration.

I’ve seen many examples of people using sliced wood artistically…

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