Kickstarter

Hello to all of you who backed my community mosaic mural project in Kenya!

I just returned from a wonderful few weeks and am full of gratitude and inspiration.

The mosaic mural project at the school was a great success. The project was part of a a residency at Kitengela Glass near Nairobi, Kenya. Nani Croze, founder and lead artist at Kitengela Glass arranged for me to do this community project at the Rudolf Steiner (Waldorf) school she founded in rural Kenya almost 20 years ago.

Over 40 students and teachers at the school participated in the mosaic mural project. I ran a special teacher training session to train the teachers how to do mosaic so that they can continue with mosaics as part of their art curriculum and left several sets of tools for them to use as well as supplies for future projects.

The design of the mural was a collage of images taken from students drawings during a brainstorming session we had about local flora and fauna, especially birds and flowers. You will see in the mural that there are many elements from nature and from the area where the school is located, including the Ngong Hills, an acacia tree and a huge bright sun. We used almost 100% recycled glass materials from Kitengela Glass for the mural, which will be hung in the dining hall of the new addition of the school.

I brought home design inspiration and some recycled glass materials to use in a project at a school here with a similar theme.

Thank you all again for supporting this project!

I have made a photo gallery just for you guys on my mobile me . mac account for those of you who would like to see photos.

Go to:
http://gallery.me.com/laureltrue#100043

This gallery is password protected so here is the information:
Username: backers
Password: kickstarter

For those of you who have a reward coming.. these will be ready very soon!

If you are interested in helping to fund future project I will be doing in Ghana this Spring, please follow this link:

ttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/LaurelTrue/design-for-mosaic-sculpture-playground-and-training

THANK YOU!
ASANTE SANA

Laurel True
www.Truemosaics.com

Wow.. What a wild journey so far in Kenya.

Our mosaic mural project has been awesome. Worked with over 40 kids at Steiner school and did a teacher training session as well. Art teacher at school will continue with mosaics with the kids. Yay!
Will leave teachers with a couple sets of tools and materials to continue. Mural is a beautiful mosaic of all recycled glass in every color. So beautiful. Design a collage of the kids' drawings of birds, flowers and an acacia tree. And a duck, stars, the hills here. Its awesome. They loved it.

We grout the mural next Wednesday and leave Kenya on Friday. So quick..

Many things are wonderful: Kitengela Glass, mosaic wonderland, walking to and from the school every day. We calculated.. 5 miles round trip. Saw herds of zebra, warthogs, impalas, tons of baboons, birds. A leopard got in a fight outside our guesthouse the other night. Total animal planet stuff. V cool.

We went on a grand mosaic tour of Nairobi. Tons of inspiring artists doing mosaic here. Amazing.

Thanks to all.
Sorry no pics until after stateside. Have great ones though ;)

Asante Sana,

Laurel

ps sorry typos

Wow!

We have stared the mural project at the Steiner School with the kids and it is going very well!
We collected lots of beautiful raw materials from Kitengela Glass to use in the mural. All "taka taka" which means garbage! Kitengela uses ALL recycled glass for their glass blowing, beadmaking, stained glass, mosiacs, everything.

This comes from old bottles, window glass and other repurposed glass. We sifted through heaps- literally mountains of broken bottles and slag glass to select boxes of raw materials for the mural. We also selected from the stash of sheet glass made from melting down bottles and and rolling out.

Additially we were able to go through the taka taka from the glass blowing studio and got great pinks, oranes and other colors that werent availabel from the other sources.

So in the mural bottoms of glasses and bottles become the centers of flowers, old wine bottles become the leaves of an acacia tree. Fabu.

The first day we worked with the kids I had then doing drawings of local flora and birds and then used their drawings to make a composit natural fantasy scene which became the design for the mural. All the teachers at the school approved it and are on board for the project.

In fact we will be doign a special teacher training mosaic lesson for several of the staff so that they may continue with mosaics at the school after we leave. The art teachers are especially interested.

We started pre processing the materials, mirror and glass and yesterday the kids started setting on the mural! Great job they are doing.

Sorry cant post pics until after I return ;(
Internet access where we are extreemly limited.

Kitengela Glass is a wonder world as I described before. Totally amazing.
We walk to the school in the morning for a hour, down a gorge, accross a cable rope bridge that goes over river/ gorge, up the side of the gorge, accross the rocky plain filled with skinny cattle and massai herders and scrubby brush, birds and acacia trees. We saw gazelles a few days ago. Baboons so common. We are on the edge of the Nairobi National Forest.

Our walk is up and down a rocky dirt road lots of hills. This is a challenge and my body is feeling it!

Will keep posting updates as I can.
Thank you again for your support for this wonderful project!

Laurel

Hello All,

Arrived safely in Nairobi on Sunday and we have adjusted and are over jet lag for the most part!

Kitengela Glass is a wonder world founded by Nani Croze. This is an oasis of sustanability in a landscape that is now sffering from bad droughts.

Kitengala is almost indescribably beautiful and rivals my experience visiting Nikis garden IN Tuscany and Gaudi's Barcelona. It is magical and full of mosaics, sculpture, glass, metal sculpture, farm animals- camels, geese, hoursed, cows, 11 dogs, birds of al kinds, ostrich, a pet egyptian vulture that hangs out under the dinner table. Bush babies eat bananas that Nani sets out on her kitchen shelf and they com in thu the ceiling. Baboons drink from the natural pool.

The glass blowing workshop is amazing, they have beadmaking, mosaic floors in all showrooms, workshops making dalle ce verre and fusing and slumping. Mosaic tile and mirror and glass cover eveything imagineable.

We are staying in a sculptural house filled with mosaic. Its awesome.
Today we took a rough road to the school where we will do the project. This is a steiner school that Nani founded in the early 90s.

The children- almost 300 of them - are beautiful. We will be doing a presentationabotu mosaic and some drawing exercises on Wednesday to begin the project which will be a swath of mosaic mural across the entire facade of the school office building. It is goign to be wonderful

Will post updates as I can.

Yay!
Asante sana (thank you so much) to all of you!

Laurel

ps plase excuse all typos.. just happy to be on internet.. ;)

Laurel

Not a long update here but wanted to say thank you again for your support as we leave day after tomorrow!

I am packing up and bringing all sorts of stuff over to Kitengela Glass Studio, where I will be doing the residency... adhesives, generously donated glass blowing equipment for their workshop, jugs of epoxy (can I bring that on the plane? I hope!) requested items from artists there.

I have lots of mosaic and glass tools packed, donated school supplies, over the counter meds, donated clothes and small gifts.

We will be dong the planing and design for the mural when we arrive at Kitengela Glass. We have been gathering lots of contacts in Nairobi, from artists to human rights activists and we are excited to make some connections and new friends.

I will do my best to post updates from Nairobi but not sure how that will go. Definitely will take tons of pictures of the mural process, start to finish and will be taking digital video footage as well. Might have a screening upon return.. ???

THANK YOU AGAIN!

Asante Sana! (I just learned this.. ;) I can say Hello and Thank You.. Will get more up to speed on plane.. language study in between tabloid reading.)

Laurel