Aryon.net Blog

The Opening party for Awaken Cafe is this Friday night May 2, 2008 - coinciding with the Oakland Art Murmur - First Fridays; arts and open galleries around the city - supporting arts, and a safe nightlife culture. Oakland Art Murmur Website.

They are open now, so you can go get your dream latte in downtown Oakland, at 414 14th St. near Broadway.

Here is a sneak peak of the second mosaic, working in broken stone is a new technique for me - the opus palladium; translated as the crazy-paving style of mosaic.

Yesterday I installed my Sun Mandala mosaic outside of Awaken Cafe at 414 14th St. in Oakland. If you’re in the area, come on by! They will be in opening up in a few weeks, and I must say, they make some fancy drinks!

This project was completed last week- the installation of 80 s.f. recycled glass mosaic tile on the back and side wall of the new cafe. The recycled glass tile is a fantastic if pricey tile, they purchased it from from EcoHome in Berkeley, CA.

Here is a great photo of one of the owners, Cortt - with the new cafe interior and friends. That wood counter was reclaimed redwood from the original construction, and they put it back together in such a lovely way- you can almost hear the stories that this wood can tell about history.

A closeup of the tile:

Here is a photo of me working it:

Awaken Cafe is getting ready to open in downtown Oakland, at 414 14th St, near Broadway. I have been working with them on a few projects. one was a restoration of the front facade tile, since a car wreck happened a few weeks ago and some of the front corner tile was broken off. here are some photos of the before and after on this restoration job. I restored both front corners, one on each side of the door.

Before:

And after:

and

Here are a few photos of my current project. I will finish setting the white background field tile today and grout tomorrow. I saw this image in my mind complete, a true gift from the magical reality behind the visible. From the inner depths of the ocean comes a wave so strong it crashes through the East Bay Artists Community known as the Vulcan Studios. This triple sided wave brings clarity of consciousness, and freedom. The triple yin-yang symbolizes the balance between chaos and order, the energies are contained and yet fully expressed in their dynamicism.

Here are a few flickr pictures….

Here is a closeup of the triple yin-yang before putting it down on the ground.

calligrapher, artist - paint dancer. I was looking for a calligraphy poem of Rumi’s - I want to base my mosaic headboard on it for the the loft bed project…but found this amazing artist along the way!!

See the article HERE on the southasian.com

Wow, the excitement ensues! My first kiln, it’s a doozy! Electric shut off, cone ten, cress made, perfect condition and super good deal on craiglist.org. Woah!!!!I am more than a little excited to turn out some ‘real’ tile. That means I have to learn more about clay bodies, and how the clay firing process aides the material preparation - you want a material that handles frost? Fire to cone X soak for xx and voila! You want a super non-moisture absorbant tile? Well, then fire to cone X and soak for XX. Lovely.

This week has seen the progression of one of my longer time-lagged projects. Two years ago I sculpted some tile, and they have been waiting all this time for me to get the skills up to make plaster molds. Or confidence really, I am always careful when doing something new that I take the time to do it right, or to the best of my ability. Well, now I know plaster can be straightforward to work with, even though it has three specific states, and moves relatively fast through each of them, so your work time is limited - really, as in two minutes for each state.

So here are some pics of my first molds of plaster. I’ll clean them up and repair the few holes and I’ll be ready to turn out some tiles!

My friend made me an awesome mold form, out of plastic, so it will be great to have consistent molds that release easily and the forms clean easily.

I am ready to deliver the sun mandala mosaic to the Awaken cafe this next week. Then I’ll start the second door, which will be a labrynth spiral

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I have finally found a good article of the little known underground temple complex in Northern Italy. The work of one man over the course of his life, Oberto Airaudi was recently unknown to even the Italian government.

Here is a full article with amazing photos here on the Daily Mail, Article by Hazel Courtney. You can click the picture to view the article as well.

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