Artist Residency with Mosaic Glass Quilts

In December, artist Carrie Strope Sohayda of Calyx Glass spent one week with K-5th grade art students at Clinton Elementary School in Lincoln, Nebraska. In addition to creating fused glass snowflakes for the students to take home and enjoy, they also collaborated on a glass quilt that will hang in the school for all the students, staff and visitors to enjoy for years to come.

Pre-installation picture of the six 18" x 24" panels

  Before diving in to containers of glass, she walked the students through the design process with worksheets that helped the students figure out the quilt blocks they would use, what shapes made up the blocks, and playing with different color combinations using different color schemes, color theory, and the color wheel.

3 Patch Design Worksheet for the K-2nd Graders

4 Patch Design Worksheet for the 3rd-5th Graders

After getting the worksheets colored in, each student chose the color combination they liked best and got to carefully pick through the glass bins to find the perfect pieces for their mosaic. Each student got a 4" square of recycled window glass (their "substrate") that was prepped ahead of time with No Days Mosaic Adhesive. "It was an incredibly clean process to work with. I didn't have to deal with sticky fingers and students asking to wash their hands. I also didn't have to wait for the individual quilt blocks to dry before taking them home to assemble into panels," noted Carrie.

"It's hard to see in the photo, but I prepped the clear glass squares by
laying a square of No Days Mosaic Adhesive on it, and then placing
the squares on an electric skillet that I use for crafts."

The No Days Mosaic Adhesive is transparent so the students placed their clear glass squares upon their templates to guide them in placing the "tesserae," or pieces of colored glass. Once they were happy with how their quilt blocks looked, they brought them over to the "curing station" - an electric skillet that activated the heat set adhesive,  where Miss Carrie made any adjustments in placement that the students pointed out.

In the classroom, gluing down the pieces
with a electric skillet and No Days Mosaic Adhesive.

At the end of each class period, the finished blocks were stacked and set aside in a box. At the end of the last day when all the quilt blocks were built, Carrie took them home to mount on 18" x 24" plexiglass panels with a silicon adhesive. Each panel then sat for 48 hours (while the silicone cured) before being grouted.

After assembling all the squares and gluing them on plexiglass,
the panels were grouted.

The International Quilt Study Center is located in Lincoln, Nebraska in the same neighborhood as Clinton Elementary School and will be displaying the Mosaic Glass Quilt panels for their First Friday event in May, 2013.

 For more information, check out the Lincoln Arts Council announcement, here.