DIANNE SONNENBERG
Mosaic and Sculpture
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Peace of Toast
By Karen Miller Spring 2018
I create art as a way to relieve stress and to incorporate items that would otherwise be thrown out or used for non-artistic purposes.
I created this Peace of Toast mosaic in response to a challenge from the mosaics course, “From Concept to Completion”, taught by Dianne Sonnenberg in Austin in early 2018. The challenge was to create a piece that evoked the theme of peace while incorporating at least a part of a table into the artwork. I had recently seen on Pinterest boards mosaiced toasters created by Nancy Keating. So, imagine my delight when walking the dogs one night, I passed by a trash dumpster from a remodel and saw a shiny toaster sitting there for the taking. The theme of peace didn’t really excite me, but a play on words truly did, and “Peace of Toast” was born. I was especially excited to incorporate the round table top that I had scavenged from heavy trash pickup as the background for the toaster.
One of the interesting discoveries I made while prepping the toaster for mosaicking is that I found out that this 1970s vintage toaster contained quite a bit of asbestos that I removed before mosaicing.
I had a lot of fun incorporating many beads and tiles from Austin Creative Reuse into the piece. I was especially excited to cut up Silestone countertop samples into small tiles and incorporate those with pieces of crash glass that my daughter scavenged from the junk yard. I especially like how the silver of the toaster reflects through the crash glass.
Another interesting repurpose is the use of corset boning as the decorative edge on the table top. I used a piece of wood trim from another table scavenged from heavy trash. The trim looks like dove wings, evocative of peace.
Last, bread (in the form of mosaiced toast) represents a symbol of peace bringing people together as they break bread together.