Creating Our Mosaic Labyrinth - Beginnings

Here are the beginnings of our 36' pebble mosaic labyrinth for Hal Brown Park in Marin. This is our first official LithoMosaic installation, where the mosaic is installed directly into the concrete. Very exciting! The project is so enormous we ended up renting a special studio space from the gorgeous and brand new ArttHaus Studios in Oakland just for the mosaic production. A huge treat. Our materials are all flat cut pebbles for the pathway outlines and color body porcelain for the center circle - almost 400 sq ft in all. Installation pictures coming soon!

Sophia Othman and Angelina Duckett laying the first pebbles

The template is enormous! And this is only half.

Carol Bevilacqua!

Getting close to having this half of the labyrinth complete!

All the pebbles are down!

Our project LithoMosaic concrete color sample. Definitely going with Terra Cotta.

Ocean and Pier Murals Grand Reveal Celebration

Check out these pics and a quick video of the great Skechers Ocean and Pier Murals reveal celebration that took place last month. A large group gathered on April 11 to see the curtains drawn and celebrate the Skechers Manhattan Beach flagship store re-opening after months of work remodeling the store and creating the murals.

The two mosaics took over 2000 hours to create from design to installation. An incredible team of 14 artists assisted Rachel with mosaic production who worked tirelessly to complete the murals. We are very proud to have created these mosaic murals for Skechers!
See more images and info on the Ocean Mural and the Pier Mural.

QUICK VIDEO OF THE GRAND REVEAL!

Michael Greenberg, President of Skechers

Custom cookies with our mosaic on them!

Rachel Rodi with Rebo McFadden, the drone photographer extraordinaire

Ribbon cutting - the store is officially re-open!

Everyone is inside partying, while a few gaze on at the murals

Skechers Ocean Mural Installation Adventure

In the spirit of catching up, wanted to share our installation adventures with the awesome Skechers store mosaic mural from last week. After shipping the 50+ mosaic sections down, the install team flew to Manhattan Beach and put up the mural without a hitch. Lots of love, blood, and sweat went into this mural (no tears). We are proud and excited to have it up. Grand opening and mural reveal pics coming soon! 

Install team: Rachel Rodi (lead), Carol Bevilacqua, Denise Hart, Sophia Othman and Jesse Medina, joined by Emily Juiliano and Molly Benson

Day 1, Got the first row up! w/ Sophia Othman, Carol Bevilacqua, Denise Hart, Rachel Rodi and Jesse Medina.

The octopus is up! w/Jesse Medina

Carol and Sophia :-)

Jesse removes sections from their cardboard packing.

Rachel trowels as the whole team works in high gear getting the sections up.

So happy Emily Juiliano got to jump in and help us!

Troweling for the last section.

Molly with the Last Section!

And the very last section fits PERFECTLY! Fantastic!!

Celebrate! All the sections are on!

Woo hoo!

Day 4 - Grouting fun begins

Carol seals the grout. We switched to cellulose sponges very quickly

Ta Da!

Raining on Our Ocean Mural Layout Parade! Literally

Nope, rain will not stop us! The final stage before installation of our big ocean mural was to lay out all the sections and make sure they work together. The only place the whole mural fit all laid out was my parking lot. The only day to do it without rain was Monday. Here we go! Half way through (with water soluble glue) it started to rain. Ohhhhhhh nooo! The whole team swung into action. We covered the whole mural with contact paper as is, bought a canopy and somehow got all the sections back inside - miraculously intact. That is a stress I'd rather not re-live. Graciously, our landlady lent us an empty unit to finish up our work the next day. Thank you Vida!

First sections going down on the template. Exciting!

Mural sections down. Love our ever handy scaffolding plank

Kim Payne making adjustments. It's starting to drizzle!

Rain is officially here. What are we to do? Rachel and Sophia Othman discuss while Kim Payne keeps working

Getting it done under tarps before the pour down. FYI - never lay on a glass mural.

Thank you Vida for lending us the space! Now we safely finish joining the sections.

Sophia Othman joining the sunflower starfish seam :-)

Glimpse into the mural color. oooohhh

Almost done! All the complete sections are pulled away. Down to the center. PS. this leaning over a mural on the floor all day technique is for the birds!

Sneak peak of the grand octopus. The surprise to be revealed when we are done

Huge huge thanks to everyone who helped save the mural this day: Sophia Othman, Mark Tabler, Kim Payne, Siram, Natalie Borges, Denise Hart, Jesse Medina and Guy Fuerte. !!! Super grateful!

Skechers Pier Mosaic Grouted!

We just missed the rain in Manhattan Beach to get this beauty grouted. Thanks to the awesome construction guys who tarped the space above when we were done. More adventures with Rachel, Carol Bevilaqua and the super install team on this site coming soon!  

To see the Pier Mosaic installation journey click HERE.

Rachel Rodi and Carol Bevilacqua