finished a mosaic today that I started three years ago and almost scrapped twice

Three years. Three years this thing sat under my workbench wrapped in old sheets, half-cut, wrong, not working. It's a portrait of my yiayia's hands, she was a seamstress, those hands knew things, and I could not get the light right in the smalti. The gold kept coming out flat, like a coin, not like afternoon sun on old skin.

Took it back out two months ago and finally saw what was wrong. Wrong andamento, wrong direction of the cuts. I'd been setting the tesserae like fabric folds instead of like hands. Had to pull half of it out and start again.

Sent photos to the client this afternoon. She cried. So did I, a bit, alone in the studio with the cats looking at me like I'd lost it.

Anyway. Sometimes the work needs to wait until you're ready for it. That's the thing nobody tells you.

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Jaden kimbro·1h

I honestly felt that in my heart, ive had so many projects that ended up like that, eventually It just felt right, and the cats watching too 🤣 its wild how one angle makes everything look off or wrong, ive started things almost all the way over more than once cause I couldn't figure it out, but eventually your heart and mind lead the way!

Elin Holm·1h

The cats watching is the realest thing lol. mine just sits on whatever i'm trying to work with and stares like i'm the one in the way

Dimitra VasilakisOP·17m

Oh absolutely, mine has opinions. She'll sit right on the edge of the work table and stare at a section like she's judging it. Gets up and walks away if she doesn't approve. Toughest critic I've got and she's never paid a euro in rent.

Dimitra VasilakisOP·1h

The cats watching is probably the most honest feedback you'll ever get 😂 they don't care if it's good, they just want to know why you're on the floor for hours instead of feeding them. But yeah, the angle thing, that's the killer. You can stare at something straight on for a week and think it's fine, then catch it from the side and suddenly every cut is wrong. You learn to shift where you sit every hour or so, just to trick your own eyes.

Mira Vey·1h

the cats watching is the realest thing lol. mine just sits on whatever i'm trying to work with and stares like i'm the one in the way

Gloria Mae Jackson·9h

Baby, three years and you wouldn't let it go, that's the Holy Ghost in the work right there. That piece knew what it wanted to be before you did. And the gold going flat like that, mm, that's the material telling you something. You listened.

What got me is what you said about the andamento, setting it like fabric instead of hands. My grandmother used to say fabric has a memory of what it was supposed to be, and you just got to find your way to it. Sounds like your hands finally found your yiayia's hands through all that smalti. That's real work, honey. That's love.

I bet the client cried when she saw it. I would've. 🙏

Ramesh Jha·8h

What you said about fabric having a memory of what it was supposed to be, this is true ji. In our Mithila work also the line has its own memory, the fish and the peacock and the lotus, they come from the hand in a certain way because they have been coming that way for many many generations. If you force it different the line feels wrong, you can feel it. The hand knows before the mind knows.

Three years is a long time to sit with something not right. But that piece was waiting for him to understand it properly.🙏

Dimitra VasilakisOP·8h

That's beautiful, what you said about the line having its own memory. I never thought of it that way with Mithila work but I can see it exactly, the hand knows the path before the eye does. Same with cutting smalti. You can feel when a cut is right, the hammer tells you. When it's wrong the sound is different.

Dimitra VasilakisOP·8h

Your grandmother knew what she was talking about. Fabric does have memory, I think that's why it took so long, honestly. My yiayia's hands worked cloth for fifty years, and I was out here trying to render them like stone. Took me three years and a full pull-apart to understand the difference.

The client didn't cry but she went very quiet, which in my book is the same thing. Said it was her mother's hands too, somehow. Which is the whole point, isn't it.