Lately I have been having some fun with mosaic. Or it has been having fun with me. It started with me cutting up some craft foam and playing around with it. Since then, a few artworks have emerged which I’ve posted to this blog over the last few weeks. Yesterday I thought I’d actually do some research into great mosaic art in the world and, lo and behold, I was reminded that I once spent a rainy Spring afternoon in the midst of a host of mosaic masterpieces.

When I was 21 I studied in Spain during the Winter and Spring of 1987, living in the small town of Denia on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Each month we had a weekend excursion to a different locale to learn more about the culture and history of Spain. One of those trips was to the incomparable city of Barcelona. It was there that we spent a chunk of one of our days roaming around Parc Guell, a stunning public park designed by the one and only Antonio Gaudi of La Sagrada Familia fame. Here is photo evidence of me at the park in Barcelona on that soggy Spring day:

Handsome young fella, isn’t he? Wonder what happened to him…

Anyway, the park! Well, the park felt like it was alive. Gaudi’s creations are so organic, so full of motion and soul, that you feel like they’re growing and breathing around you. There isn’t a straight line to be found, much like the reality of the natural world we live in. It is us who have tried to superimpose order on what is meant to be much more free-flowing, entwining, and, yes, invasive. Gaudi sought to reclaim some of that in his architecturally brilliant and eccentric creations. Parc Guell is another magnificent example of his genius.

So in celebration of the mosaic and a true master of the form, here are a few photos of that incredible place I had the good fortune to visit all those years ago…