What has 25 stories, no beginning and no end? It’s a 5-foot tall mosaic-tile “egg” created over the past year by at least 17 participants at the Shelburne Senior Center.
Alan Young, an Buckland artist best known for his Sow’s Ear carved wooden spoons, came up with the idea of the group art work last winter.
“I had a vision of a few people creating small mosaic works and somehow joining them into one, larger piece,” said Young. “Little did I know the extent of what was to follow.”
In the end, 17 participants at the Shelburne Senior Center joined in, each designing small mosaics that held special meaning for them. They learned the skill of mosaic picture-making and shared in the tasks of putting it all together.
Images of the Bridge of Flowers, the Sweetheart Restaurant, the Iron Bridge, emus, angels, rainbows are nestled into “The Egg,” along with small hommages to past senior center members who have died.
For now, The Egg — as they call it — is on display in the Senior Center, and Director Cathy Buntin is creating a book of essays, written by the participants, about how each of the 25 “vignettes” came about.
For instance, Young created the image of a piece of knitting, still on the needles, but with several small holes in the knitted fabric. Young said the image was a tribute to Lorraine Dyer of Ashfield, who died at the age of 89.
“Lorraine had a great zest for life and enjoyed many friendships at the center,” Young said. “She was an enthusiastic knitter, even though she sometimes dropped stitches. ‘I’m knitting for the church,’ she would joke. ‘Because my knitting is holey.’ We all miss her humor and joy.”
Mosaic participants Mildred March and Tu Vi Luong picked The Sweetheart for their mosaic, because March, a life-long real estate agent, sold the iconic building three times.
“My goal in this was to have it be interesting (to look at) at 30 feet and engaging at 30 inches, which I think it is,” Young said. “I didn’t expect it to be as massive and as amazing.”
Young created the egg-shaped armature out of wire and duct tape, then covered it with insulation foam donated by Bryan Hobbs Home Improvement. The foam was then sanded into shape and covered with cement, which made it ready to accept the mosaic tiles.
“The neighborhood kids who rode by thought I was building a rocketship,” Young said. The egg was then marked off into 25 sections for the tile vignettes.
At first Young held classes at the Senior Center, bringing in mosaic tiles in 40 different colors. “People had already picked out a drawing of their own that they would like to do,” he said. “It was very personal, and there were all kinds of levels of artistic ability. Some completed what they wanted in class and others took their tiles home.”
Some also came to Young’s home, sat on his deck and worked there. “We had a wonderful time,” he said. “There were casual conversations about the process and about their own histories. Also, it helped them understand about mosaics, which are basically pixelated art. It was an artistic exchange as well as a personal one.”
“This has been absolutely marvelous,” said Eileen Lively of Heath. “He taught me how to become comfortable with myself as an inner artist. The project has been full of a lot of laughter, trial and error.”
An homage to Looney Tunes’ “That’s all, folks!” was the last vignette put on The Egg. It was created by Young, who “was thinking about one last piece to draw together all the others,” he says in an essay about the project.
“There had been so many wonderful conversations, a few tears shed and lots of laughter shared while we worked on this project. … this idea of mine took on a life of its own and far exceeded anything I would have done on my own. The curious, lifelong learners, the people who have taken life’s hits and still find the humor in it picked it up and carried it to the finish line,” Young wrote in his essay.
“We are all old enough to remember cartoons as part of the attraction of a Saturday matinee at the movies. Thanks go to Bugs, Elmer and Daffy who showed us that you can be embarrassed, blown up, fooled or fall off a cliff and still find a way to laugh about it.”