We live in the near NW side of Oklahoma City, in a diverse, urban neighborhood of both recent immigrants and professionals, fine old houses and dilapidated flop houses, manicured lawns and homeless vagrants. Nearby is the rejuvenated - indeed thriving - Plaza District. Americans of European, African, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, and South Asian descent, as well as remnants of dozens of Native American nations, all live nearby.
I did not make my first mosaic until I was in my late forties. For the most part, I taught myself. Over the years I have developed a set of unique techniques and style. I have no formal art training. Much of my art is representational, yet stylized, and portrays a personal mythology of sorts. I do not recognize much of a boundary between the art I do in my
mosaics, and that in the rest of my life. One of the most creative things I do is to pick up trash on the street when I walk over to my 21st Street garden.
In 2010, I was commissioned by St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral at NW 7th and N. Robinson in Oklahoma City to do a series of seven art panels for a new columbarium as a part of the complete re-construction of their inner courtyard, which was designed by Butzer Gardner Architects. Six of the panels grace the columns of the columbarium, while the seventh, much larger panel is installed at the end of the collonade. The panels were installed in March of 2011. The six smaller panels were photographed prior to installation, and so each have several loose tesserae, where screws were later placed.
In 2009, I was commissioned to fabricate a 10' medallion commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Bethany First Church of the Nazarene in Bethany, Oklahoma. Sunni Mercer, artist and member of the church, led a team that produced the design. The medallion was fabricated using Italian smalti and gold smalti. It was installed in September, 2009.
Included in this gallery are a few shots of a backsplash completed in 2012, and some other seasonal photos taken of tiled concrete cylinders in my own front yard, a project undertaken in 2011 and still evolving.
Brooks Tower
2212 - NW 20th
Oklahoma City, OK 73107
Telephone: 405-528-0612
brookstower@hotmail.com
Sectile and not
Mosaic has lately become a hard-to-define term. Historically, it refers to works made primarily of pieces of stone or glass which have been nipped, chiseled, or cut, and then arranged in abstract or representational patterns. Works that are mosaic in appearance, but use materials other than stone, glass, ceramic, or shell, have also been called "mosaic". These rely on the broader, more generic definition of mosaic, as in a city that is a mosaic of unique neighborhoods, or a mosaic of agricultural fields. Some wonderful work has been done mixing both traditional and non-traditional materials, giving rise to the question, "What factors delineate a mosaic from an assemblage or mixed media work?" The Society of American Mosaic Artists, adopting the "big tent" approach, has so far chosen not to issue its own attempt at a definition.
Opus sectile, or "cut work" in Latin, can be described as a specific technique in mosaic that involves the cutting of stone or other materials with a blade, rather than nipping or chipping the stuff with nippers or hammer and hardie. Actually it may be a whole separate craft, because its main similarity to other mosaic is the materials it uses; the techniques are pretty different.
Just about everything you see in the two detail photos of my work on this page were cut with a regular Felker wet saw. Other works, such as via were cut with a diamond band saw. Nippers, on the other hand, were the only tool used to cut the Italian smalti (enamel impregnated glass) in this detail shot of a commissioned work for a church.
Written and not
I tend to ignore artists' statements when I visit a gallery or website. Many are tiresome and overblown. Others are filled with the latest buzzwords and shibboleths gleaned from art publications - artspeak. If reading the statement is required to understand, enjoy, somehow appreciate the work, then I tend to think that the art itself is deficient. By "art itself" I mean the thing hanging on the wall.
In much of "art" over the past five or six decades, text and context have supplanted visual experience. Concept has supplanted technique and skill - indeed the artist's hand need not even be involved. I have held onto a forlorn hope that contemporary mosaic might prove to be a sort of last bastion against these trends - a sort of anti modern/post-modern/post-art art. High skill, and prolonged and obsessive attention to detail, are requisite to fine mosaic.
This is a wall of statements in our house - various notes, letters, lyrics, lists, and warnings that we have picked up off the streets and sidewalks over the past 20 years. It is not a conceptual wall.
News, if there is any,...
Via has been juried into the 14th Biennial Oklahoma Centerfold 2012 National Juried Art Exhibition at the Leslie Powell Gallery in Lawton, Oklahoma. An exhibition of my work was on display there in January of 2012. Via has also been juried into the 2013 Mosaic Arts International at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington. It has been awarded one of three Juror's Awards, by juror Matteo Randi. The exhibition will run from January to May, 2013. JRB Art at the Elms has scheduled an exhibition of my work next May, 2013. It will run through the Paseo Art Festival.
The earth moves,...
from drought and roots and rain, and 90 year old sewer lines collapse. Toilets become decorative art. Showers become luxuries. Most people, forced to choose, would rather have indoor plumbing than art. Plumbers are more important than artists. Ricki, the parrot, with whom I've had a 26 year relationship, pretty much liked all the commotion, especially the non-stop Mexican radio played by the trench diggers.
The stone patio, which was first constructed to solve a drainage issue, where water from the backyard pooled against the house and seeped into the basement, had to be rebuilt. It's mostly redone, with the addition of the structure for an eventual new, stubby mosaic tube, which now becomes project #1603b.
Bethany First Church of the Nazarene’s 100th anniversary, 10’ medallion, fabricated with Italian smalti, designed by Sunni Mercer, Bethany, Oklahoma, completed fall, 2009
St Pauls Episcopal Cathedral, NW 7th and Robinson, Oklahoma City: Seven panels, one approximately 6’ x 8’, for a courtyard columbarium, which was designed by Butzer Gardner Architects. Completed February, 2011.
Selected exhibitions, awards and galleries:
2013
Solo exhibition, JRB Art at the Elms, Oklahoma City, May
My work "via" wins a juror prize at the 2013 Mosaic Arts International, at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington
2012
Hard Edge: Twelve Years in stone, porcelain, and glass, Leslie Powell Gallery, Lawton, Oklahoma, Jan-Mar
14th Biennial Oklahoma Centerfold 2012 National Juried Art Exhibition, my accepted piece: via, Leslie Powell Gallery, Lawton, Oklahoma, Nov - Dec
2011
Mosaic Arts International Exhibition, juried exhibition by the Society of American Mosaic Artists, Austin, TX, April,my piece: sub lingua
Oklahoma Friendly, Oklahoma Art Guild juried exhibition, IAO Gallery, Oklahoma City, March-April
National Mosaic Exhibition on Cape Cod, juried exhibition, Falmouth, MA, July - Sept
Collaborating artist, assisting Canadian artist Gerry Lavery with his outstanding Yonge Street church mural, City of Toronto, Canada
2009
UK/OK: Exploring Traditions in Contemporary Design, Price Tower Arts Center, Bartlesville, OK, Aug – Dec
Cutting Edges: Contemporary Mosaic Art, Lake Oswego, OR, June
The Sum of all Parts, juried exhibition, Bathhouse CulturalCenter, Dallas, Mar
Oklahoma Visual Artists Coalition juried biennial Visionmakers Exhibition, April
2008
Mosaic Arts International Exhibition, juried exhibit by the Society of American Mosaic Artists, Miami, FL, April
An Ancient Language – A Modern Translation, Garland, TX, Sept
Best 2-D for The Clearing, Inspired by...Contemporary Mosaics and the Historical Tradition: A juried Invitational Exhibition of Mosaic Art, Fredericksburg, VA, Oct
2007
The Sum of all Parts, juried exhibition, Hillsboro, OR
Breakout, British Association For Modern Mosaic juried exhibition, Bilston Gallery, Wolverhampton, England – one of eight international invited mosaicists. My piece Sunburger featured on banner
Best of Show for Marketday (II), Mosaic Arts International, Mesa, AZ, the annual international juried exhibition by the Society of American Mosaic Artists
JRB Art at the Elms solo exhibition, Oklahoma City, OK
2006
Bits and Pieces, juried exhibition, Studio 2600, Dallas, TX
JRB Art at the Elms solo exhibition, Oklahoma City, OK
Society of American Mosaic Artists 2006 National Exhibition, High Risk Gallery, Chicago
OVAC VisionMakers Biennial Exhibition, Powell Gallery, Lawton, Ok
LiT Gallery and Bar, Oklahoma City: curator of Fractured Lit, an exhibition of 18 North American mosaicists
2005 and earlier
JRB Art at the Elms, group exhibition, Function as Art
My Atlantis, National Juried Exhibition, San Francisco, CA
Visual Arts Alliance, National Juried Exhibition, Houston, TX
Oklahoma Watercolor Mixed Media Competition, Oklahoma City University, Equal Merit Award
Touchstone Gallery, 2005 National Juried Exhibition, Wash., D.C., Honorable Mention
The Atelier, Miami, FL: National Juried Mosaic Exhibition, Dec 2004, 2005
Art Focus Oklahoma: A Mosaic Life: Brooks Tower, Jan-Feb, 2006
Grout , British Association of Modern Mosaics quarterly, Featured artist, June, 2006
Featured on “Is This a Great State or What?”, KFOR-TV, 2009
The pecan crop is very good this year - puzzling after a summer of 113° days and no rain. The harvest is virtually without worms and tastes especially good this year, and collecting and cracking has been a priority lately. Few activities hold less ambiguity for me; the trees make them and I collect them and we crack them and eat them and give them to friens and family. That's not only an unalloyed good - it pretty nearly ranks in my world as a commandment: Don't waste the pecans.
Besides, if we don't at least get them out of the backyard (they are also all over the front yard, the garden/lot next door, and our garden one block to the north), then the young hound and old husky mix spend all day eating them - which the hound seems to be able to handle, but the husky's 14 year old digestive track does not seem up to the job.
Norman, Oklahoma - a city just 25 miles to our south, has just made legal the keeping of up to four chickens within the city limits. Still, our august City Council balks at the prospect - ostensibly because of the "noise" and the "smell" - even though the city allows the keeping of up to four large canines in any backyard - no mater how tiny, no matter how loud the dogs, no matter how great the stink - and even though proposed ordinance changes do not allow roosters.
This is asinine policy - especially for a city that sees itself as conservative. What business does a city have in requiring its citizens - unless they have at least one acre - to buy eggs and meat from huge poultry factories that pollute watershed and rivers? I've kept chickens for 25 years at this residence - to the approval and delight of my neighbors.
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