Dealing with Disaster

My beautiful "Life's a Beach" GOG landscape cracked on me the other night. I was devastated and it left me seriously depressed. I've put so much work into this piece and for it to be ruined in a heartbeat like that made me want to cry. It's not a masterpiece but it is truly gorgeous. I've used some wonderful textured stained glass in a variety of colors. Now to be clear, this is made from scrap stained glass. This glass is leftover scrap from various projects and is what remains after the artist cut pieces she wanted out of the original sheet. Usually a ring saw is used to cut out specific pieces to complete a design. Scrap glass is sold by the pound at my favorite glass store in north Austin, Artisan Glass. The store is run by Linda Oliveira and when she can, Dianne Sonnenberg. 

Since the crack, I've avoided working on that specific piece and barely touched it, even to take pictures of it. I really did think it was ruined and ready for the trash can until a fellow mosaic artist friend on Flickr gave me a solution. All I need to do is get the appropriate size piece of glass and glue it to the back of the piece. Well, why didn't I think of that??? Mary Foley - bless her heart of gold - is something of a marvel when it comes to mosaics anyway but when she offered up a way to salvage my work, I was thrilled, ecstatic and ready to sacrifice a small child in her honor. (just kidding, of course!) Mary claims to be new to mosaics but she works circles around most of us. Her experience and knowledge saved my butt on this one and I'll be indebted to her forever but I can live with that.