The Story of "Uplifting"

After I paid my bill for having my floors carpeted, I noticed someone throwing away beautiful samples of marble, glass, porcelain.... just exquisite stuff being placed in the dumpster outside.  

"Why are you throwing that away?", I asked.  

"It's discontinued."

I walked back in and asked the owners if they might like to show the public that they sell more than carpet.  I suggested that the ugly graffiti wall facing the street might have a mosaic mural made of all the discontinued tile.

They were skeptical...not understanding how I could make unique art installations from scraps.

So... I went home with a few of their supplies and came back with an example:

Still available for sale! - though I've grown rather fond of it so I don't care if it doesn't.  Talk about creative gift ideas- know anyone who loves the blues? 

  The crystalized glass was just gathered from a car wreck that happened in Ashland that week and I thought the broken glass was actually beautiful.  Anyway, to continue...

"Impressive, but how do we know you can do a large scale work?"  

"We have this blue awning that is in disrepair. We were going to order another fabric sign but it's outrageously priced."  

I suggested we used leftover material from their jobs and protect it with a exterior sealant.

Thus, the "prejob to the job" to show my mettle.

Well now.... that's  better!

As a publicly visible work, there were quite a few stipulations:  

No religion

No advertising

No Offensiveness

No Affiliations

No No No...

It took a year of collecting tile while I thought of a design to inspire yet not offend in any way yet advertise what they had to offer without being an ad.  Then all the negativity in the news hit me and this image message of helping each other formed in my mind.

 I superimposed my idea on the building with material sold in the store  to show the owners.  They loved it! so my daughter ilaena and I walked the neighborhood knocking on every door within a visible radius of the artwork to get approval from the locals.  

We asked them to sign a petition for the city to know that it was wanted.  

We received 100% approval from the neighbors!  Not a single person rejected it!

As we walked about for approval, we received enormous support from the community without even being asked.  

One neighbor said he used to be in construction and could saw the shapes for the backing needed to support the mosaic.  

A business owner offered to raise money with a fun run.

A chocolatier offered to put my design on a candy bar wrapper to raise money.

I got so excited that I called the city representative from the art commission to tell her about it.

"You can't do that!"  she said.  "The image can't be out there without city approval."  

After a stunned pause I said...."But you told me the city wouldn't help and I would have to raise the money myself so how am I supposed to do that without the image?"

First I had to meet with the Art Commission to get approval which I didn't think would be so hard as I used to be on the board but... apparently they didn't like me.  

 They didn't agree with how I was going to do the work, demanding that I use a more complicated dangerous process with a plumb line from the roof!  

I created a clear plan on a grid and then placed that grid on a piece of plexiglass so they could stand in front of the wall and see that my grid method would work.  

"Well, ok.  but make sure it's removable."

!!!

Wow. thanks for the vote of confidence.   Now I had to find a contractor to connect the panels to the wall with something other than mortar. 

On to the town meeting....

There was a town meeting coming up the next night and ... hey!  I already had my neighborhood petition to share with them simply because I wanted to make sure the neighbors would like the art,

The art commission members had me all concerned but due to my petition and the fact that it was not requiring any money from the city, it wasn't even a skip in their meeting and was approved within seconds.The next day I was all set to begin and went to the back of the building to gather all of the tile supplies we had been collecting for a year. 

Imagine how my heart fell when there was nothing there.

Someone had seen all of the mismatched tiles and decided another purpose for them.

They were gone.  

We had to start all over collecting discontinued pieces of tile we'd been collecting for a year.

Luckily, Kristin, a delivery supplier had seen my design and was interested in helping.  She gathered discontinued tile from all of her other stores and helped us build back our supply in not time!

Ready to begin again, I looked about for their outdoor spigot to use for mixing the mortar and grout.  

"Oh, we don't have one."

It takes a LOT of water to do this large of a piece.  They suggested I ask neighboring businesses.

After calling around, I reached the owner of the next door Minute Mart and he allowed me to use the spigot behind his building - even donating the water for my use rather than letting me pay for it.

Oh yeah...  and I did get hold of a contractor because we knew someone from church that was a retired contractor.  Darryl said he could help.

But then I got the call right as I was needing to start getting the boards of mosaic up onto the wall.  Wife in surgery.... son coming up... family in from California.  "I just can't commit to helping anymore."

I got to wondering if maybe I wasn't supposed to do this....

A story of overcoming obstacles with perseverance and fortuitous circumstances

Written and illustrated by the artist of Uplifting, Krysta Bannis

creative gift ideas