Customer Reviews

Mosaic Art and Style: Designs for Living Environments

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(1)
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It's not just that there are works from over 75 artists, or that the subject matter ranges from table tops to fountains to showers to a whole mosaic outdoor "living room" complete with a lamp, or that Locktov has tracked down artists from around the world who are so amazing you'll find yourself gasping out loud as you turn each page . . . all of which would be reason enough to buy this book. . . BUT, the photos are absolutely superb and, better yet, marvelous and multiple detail shots are provided. At last, a book on mosaics were you actually get to SEE things!

Equally important, the writing is just superb. Locktov clearly has a talent for interviewing artists and eliciting from them their very personal thoughts on their art. In just a few words, you can learn an incredible amount about an artist's motivation, inspiration, and life's work. You can then turn to the pictures of their pieces and think, "Yes! I see that!" What a gift.

So many artists. So many styles, materials, purposes, and venues. Wonderful words and images. Soulfulness and exhuberance and ART! Man, that's what I call inspiring!

Through pages bursting with vivid color and inspired artistry, author Locktov makes it unmistakably clear that mosaic tiles and mosaic art are no longer the sole purview of bathrooms and kitchens. This outstanding book showcases creative mosaic art applied with skill and vision to personal and public spaces. Artists from America, Italy, Japan and New Zealand, many of
whom are enhancing their own homes and gardens, show us the vast range of possibilities and contemporary takes on this most ancient art form.

Walls, patios, furniture, musical instruments, doorways, fountains, benches, murals and objets d'art--and yes, bathrooms and kitchens--transcend the commonplace and explode the status quo of tile functionality, elevated by artistry and unusual materials into the most exciting and inspirational collection of environmental contemporary mosaics seen in years.

The first half of the book profiles selected artists, allowing readers to discover their motivations, inspiration and unique approaches to their art, while exploring the resulting work through colorful photos. The second half is the gallery, a collection of images by a multitude of artists, divided into environments, such as dining, healing, living and relaxing. The contact information for every artist in the book appears at back.

This book proves that modern mosaics can be invited into any home, indeed any space, contemporary, traditional, private or public, in a role far greater than the merely functional. Locktov demonstrates that through color, pattern and its inherent tactile qualities, mosaics can soothe or stimulate, take center stage or gently recede into the background, all the while providing the enjoyment, beauty and pleasure of art in everyday life.

Highly recommended for creative homeowners and remodelers, designers, decorators, architects and public art contractors, this book will also provide hours of reading pleasure for artists in any medium, as well as for those who appreciate out-of-the-box creativity, fulfillment of unique artistic vision and beauty in any form.

I bought this book as an afterthought while buying another mosaic book - one of those Amazon "twofers" deals - and found it to be more impressive than my original choice. It highlights individual artists over several pages so that you can get a feel for the work of the creme de la creme of mosaic artists. Great photos and informative but brief bios and brief descriptions of the pieces - all at a great price - make this a book worthy of study and a source of inspiration. I'd love to see future books in this same format covering additional artists.

This is a great book not only as an admirer of the arts but also it gives you ideas for your own projects. I have been doing mosaics for the past 2 years, visited Gaudi's houses in Barcelona and the book shows different kind of projects which resemble those from Barcelona, Spain

The beautiful images in this book show the full potential that mosaic works can be. As a beginner to mosaic art I found the pieces in this book to be a bit intimidating, but I also got some great ideas to use in my own work. This book did a great job at showing how mosaic work can be used to spice up any area in everyday spaces.

Every page was full of beautiful examples of great mosaic variations. Great for countless home decor ideas for every room, outdoor and even commercial too. The pages are high quality print and vibrant color. I marked so many pages with inspirational project ideas. I've been cracking, gluing and grouting like mad. It's surely motivational. A Great find!

Unfortunately, this is one of the weaker books that I have seen in about mosaic art. Not a how-to book, it is supposed to demonstrate a range of examples of mosaic art. I find the photos to be too small in many cases, and a lot of projects too amateurish. A few projects did look good, but the photographs were not good enough to examine the details of the work or the quality of the mosaics. I would not recommend this book.

A view of a wide range of mosaic art both public and private. To enjoy for the art itself and an inspiration for your own craft ...

This is an absolutely dynamite book put together by someone who loves tile. In fact it's through love of tile that I met JoAnn Locktov in the first place at the Kitchen and Bath International Show at Las Vegas earlier this year. She represents New Ravenna Mosaics; I'd written a blog on them; and they asked me to visit their booth while I was at the show. But it's the passion for tile that brought the three of us together that particular afternoon. Sara Baldwin (owner of New Ravenna Mosaics) has the best of it, though, because she gets to make those marvelous mosaics from time to time. JoAnn gets next best because of her marvelous books on tile and her many trips to see some of these installations in person. Me? I'm just a blogger who really loves writing about tile!

I don't think there is a room in one's home that would not benefit from a judicious application of tile, maybe even an entire wall or two given over to tile. It can be a backsplash or a centerpiece; it can line a shower surround, cover a countertop, or make a glorious floor. Tile in any medium enthralls me, but one of the more fascinating aspects of it is this whole field of mosaics, and especially so in this day and age. Face it now, we live in the days of instant gratification. They won't teach cursive writing in school anymore because kids start mashing keys on computer keyboards before they learn how to read! How those kids are ever going to really get an education in such glories as creative writing, or any other kind of art requiring perseverance and discipline is beyond me. But I digress.

Anyone who creates in ceramic tile moves a mountain in a lot of regards because of what is required to make that sort of thing, but a mosaic requires a truly astounding amount of work to make it happen. One goes through several drawings until the concept is ready for the actual tiling. One then chooses colors, finds tiles to cut up, cuts up said tiles (and even though they have machines to help with that portion of thing, the amount of required work is still nothing short of staggering), blends them into the pattern floating around in one's head, and then, at long last, begins laboriously gluing them in place, one at a time, because for all the advances they have made in the field, there is still no other way of doing this part of the work. The final results are often stunning and always beautiful.

Some time after the Las Vegas meeting, JoAnn gifted me with a copy of this book, and I have to say it was better than I thought it would be when I looked through the available pages on Amazon. She found some of the damnedest art I believe I have ever seen, and all of it is in gloriously vibrant colors.

As for the book itself, if you love tile, or if you're looking to get information on what can be done with tile mosaics, you absolutely will not go wrong with this book. It is incredibly colorful and informative. I highly recommend it.

Informative and inspiring read. Book is filled with a diverse range of mosaic artist's works, as well as background info on how different artist got started in mosaics.