Virginia Gardner
mosaics
article and video by christina ritchie rogers
Virginia Gardner’s life is in pieces, and she couldn’t be happier about it. Surrounded by chips and chunks of colorful stained glass, gemstones, rocks, shells, corals, and dishware, Gardner’s process is one of creating and of healing.
For Gardner, making art is an intensely personal process, and is the most effective form of therapy she has found. “What I’m able to do is allow whatever it is that’s in me out,” she said.
One of her recent pieces, All I see is Red, was created in reaction
to the war in Iraq. The piece was accepted into the 2010 Mosaic Arts International exhibit, which opened in the Smith Museum of Stained Glass in Chicago in March and will run through July. The show was originally scheduled to run through the end of April, but was extended due to the large turnout (over 80,000 people in two months). Gardner has a second war piece, Shock and Appall, which is about a failed military effort in Iraq, and she is also working on a third to complete the series.
After earning a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University,
Gardner worked in arts administration at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art in Richmond and later was the director of Second Street Gallery in downtown Charlottesville. By the late 1980s, Gardner
took a hiatus from the art business and went into the real estate business, in which she still works today. However, her need to create could not be ignored. After two decades, Gardner re- indulged her artistic desire and began to explore the mosaic art form in detail.
Gardner draws inspiration from many different sources. Her piece, Lost, was inspired by a deep emotional experience: the creation and subsequent destruction of a former piece, Never
Enough Payback, which represented a traumatic experience from her youth. The destruction of that piece and creation of Lost was part collage, part mosaic, part performance, all healing.
Frequently, Gardner draws inspiration from the materials themselves - be it from their organic shape, texture, color, or something more intangible. She recalls a time years ago when she first started collecting stones and had them in bags in her studio. “I was unable to work in here because there was too much energy,” she said. She has since separated and organized the stones, and is mindful of their need to “breathe.”
Gardner also draws inspiration from books, s
the Rings series and Preston’s The Wild Trees.
important because they remind us how impo is,” said Gardner. She plans to do her next se “It has everything to do with where I am,” sa amid a series of hills and winding roads in view of the reservoir.
Aesthetically, she plans to work with curvilin winding lines. Materially, she has been excite pieces as rainforest jasper, agate, and onyx. S explore cork as a potential m
In addition to her piece in the Mosaic Arts Int Gardner’s work can be viewed in C’ville Arts in downtown Charlottesville. She writes a b
experiences at
driftingintofocus.com and h
virginiamosaics.com
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