10,000-Piece Puzzles

As a little girl, I would watch family members bend over a card table in my grandparents’ living room to mull over the placement of tiny puzzle pieces, too many to count. Occasionally, someone would exclaim “Found it!” I was mesmerized as the bits slowly moved into place and a picture formed. To this day, I love those intricate and very ephemeral puzzles, but I rarely indulge myself because I’ve got something better to do…creating mosaic plant containers and flower pots.

         To do a mosaic is like putting together the pieces of a 10,000-piece puzzle, and consumes just as much time. However, the obvious advantage is that you own a useful, finished product, and with each pot I learn something new. At first, I used rather large pieces, which helped to cover the pot more quickly.

Getting adventuresome, I went to bigger pots. 

I did a black and white series that sits in the garden. The white color is a slate floor tile. Rather difficult to work with because it is difficult to cut, but very pretty with a matte finish.

I would have liked to have lion sculptures in front of the gate. 

Not far from the Blue Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey

Museum of the Ancient Orient, Istanbul, Turkey

Florence, Italy

but, I settled on a couple of large pots.

The pieces (or tesserae) remain rather big.

Then I thought about the possible designs that smaller pieces would enable me to do. So I had to figure out a way to get the tiles cut more evenly, smaller, and flatter on the back for a smoother surface...I would be embarrassed to admit all the different methods I tried. I finally discovered tile "nippers" and realized that an electric sander took care of the raised grid on the reverse side of tiles very well.  


To add a bit of drama, Before & After photos.  The Before, a clay pot the size and shape of a bucket:

And the After:

The green variegated tiles were leftover from our original kitchen and the white tiles were leftover from my bathroom renovation. It contains a grapevine that will eventually curl around a wrought iron railing, and a couple of succulents to have something green when the grapevine loses its leaves.


Better than a 10,000-piece puzzle!