The Art of Mosaics

Battersea Arts Centre Mosaic and reflection on mosaic in our time

Jesse Rust & Co • Started the firm in 1856 in Carlisle Lane, under the arches leading from Waterloo station • By 1861 employing 10 men • Worked with Henry Cole of the V & A making early floors of the museum • 1892 Jesse Rust and son registered at 353 Battersea Park Rd

Manufacturing glass • I take old glass of any description and fuse it with a large quantity of sand together with the colouring matter. I thereby get a material resembling marble, but which is much harder and will resist moisture.

Any colour and shape can be made in a fused state. I then press it into moulds, in the shape required either for geometric designs, or in squares to be broken up for mosaic.

Collaboration with V & A • Jesse Rust made this mosaic for V & A delivered in 1866 for £150 • Part of Kensington Valhalla: Bernard Palissy – artist • Henry Cole founded V & A • Set up a School of Mosaic which collapsed on his retirement • Worked with Woking Women’s prison, providing rehabilitation through artisan craft

Collaboration with Alfred Waterhouse: leading architect and Quaker • • • • • • • •

Manchester Town Hall Eaton hall Cheshire Owens College Manchester Cleveland grammar School Middlesborough Pembroke College Cambridge Clock Victoria building Liverpool University Fosters Bank Cambridge Pearl Life Assurance, Liverpool

Jesse Rust and son • Battersea Town Hall built 1893 • Henry Jesse the son was a mosaic artist and headed the firm in 1895 when his father died • From 1905 began to acquire property in Battersea • Son died in 1935 and firm closed at start of WWII

Symbol of the Bee Respectable Hard-working Lavender Hill B for Battersea Well organised Cooperative Part of the circle of life Their activity causes nature to thrive • Fertility • Honey • • • • • • • •

Victorian Taste • Revolution in favour of colour mid-19th century • Mosaic was impermeable • Could be washed and cleaned (in the smog) • 1862 International Exhibition showed off Italian and Russian mosaics • Adventure: between colour and line • Expensive: Victorians could afford mosaic

Mosaic in our time • Three great historical movements: • Classical • Byzantine • Contemporary, which starts with Victorian’s renewed interest • Cost inhibition: postwar austerity goes on and on

Mosaic is a metaphor for London • All the peoples, tribes, creeds, colours, clans, cultures, faiths and freedoms coming together to make a brilliant whole • Corporate architecture does not have to be dominated by minimalism: drab, grey, dull • Everywhere looks the same?

• Pop-up celebrity banality • Frenetic, endless work, email tyranny, bullshit jobs

Yearning for meaning • Open studio • Inclusive approach • Haptic skills: transferable • Making something to last 500 years or more • Making my neighbourhood more attractive

Teaching mosaic skills at a gold standard

Can our cities become attractive and life enhancing? • We have: Knowledge from history Superb examples Engineering Power tools and vehicles Many people wanting jobs Imagination Empathy and Well-being

Southbank Mosaics Background • Start-up: an idea • Create an artisan school • Maintain links with “dispossessed” groups: homeless people and offenders • Work at the highest standards with best quality materials

Making my neighbourhood more attractive • Beyond the centre of town • The “industrialisation” of the public realm • Privatisation and patrolling of public space • Or creating meeting/moving spaces which are safe, attractive and display civic pride • Street Artisan: a new job

Alternative to prison for young people • Re-offending rates at 75% • Up to 95% mental health issues • Self-harming, suicide and radicalisation • 19th century solution • Prison more expensive than Harvard/Oxford • Food, clothing, habitation provided • Universities of crime?

• Where’s the pay-back?

• Victim pays twice?

• Better conditions for staff • Public opinion currently in favour of prisons

London School of Mosaic • To deliver a foundation degree course for 22 students a year • No Mosaic Degree in the world • Half of all places to be on scholarships • To continue working with schools and special groups • To run diploma courses and evening/weekend courses • To include business studies and community activities • To be a bridge between the corporate and private world • Thinking 5000 years ahead

You got to fight for your right to be arty Carrie Reichardt