Jane’s incredible mosaics
Our speaker for March was the fantastic Jane Santos, whose wonderful mosaics and talk were being discussed for days afterwards.
Jane had everyone laughing as she explained mosaics are a big part of her native England landscape, as Roman ruins are uncovered everywhere. They played a big part in decor as she grew up.
She started doing mosaics when she lived in the UK, and once moving to New Zealand she found herself drawn to urban scenes and landscapes.
Mosaics will last, she told us, unless you do it on wood and allow moisture to come near- so no wood backed mosaics in New Zealand! She also finds grout dulls colours so she places the pieces closely together to create smaller lines, and sometimes she uses no grout to draw attention to sections.
As her skills have increased Jane has added 3D elements to her work, adding layers, making trees different and textured, utilizing beads and glass to great effect. It gives her pieces life and movement, and means there’s always something new to discover.
One thing you can keep an eye out for is Jack, her husbands escape artist dog who often appears on pavements outside houses.
A small piece can take her about 40 hours to complete, while a medium one can be 80 hours of work. She has made over 200 to date, and has no plans to stop. As she proudly said she’s 83 and still going, and will keep going.
We also had a wonderful show and tell to finish the meeting
