An article about The Mosaic Workshop and artist J Muzacz is long overdue.
Located in Austin, Texas, The Mosaic Workshop teaches people of all ages and abilities the art of mosaic making through hands-on classes at all levels and community-led mosaic murals of monumental scale.
They also organize The Legends Project, which is an ongoing series of 45 mosaics and counting.
These mosaics are “grassroots public art portraits” depicting cultural leaders across industries.
Without question, Austin is a city worth visiting, and a session at The Mosaic Workshop would be a great way to participate in the local arts scene and experience more than you would as a typical tourist.
The public art The Mosaic Workshop has made is impressive.
The Legends Project
Artist J Muzacz wrote up a description of several of the mosaics in The Legends Project series:
About The Legends Project
“The Legends Project started in summer of 2020 is an ongoing series of mosaic portraits honoring impactful women and other leaders of color across industries, funded and installed as grassroots public art.
Some of the artworks are monumental murals covering hundreds of square feet made by dozens of community volunteers. Others are smaller in scale, made with incredible attention to detail.
Collaborating artists come from a variety of backgrounds with practices like printmaking, contemporary beadwork, painting, resin sculpting, and digital art.
The mosaic portraits are installed in locations such as community clinics, local small businesses, non-profit offices, libraries, and the list goes on.
Grey Ghost Williams Mosaic
Roosevelt ‘Grey Ghost’ Williams was a blues pianist originally from Bastrop just east of Austin, who played barrel house blues and jazz piano on the Chitlin Circuit for 70 years.
This memorial mural, based on a 1991 photograph taken by Wyatt McSpadden at the Continental Club before Williams’ happy hour gig, is the first in an East Austin Legends series.
This community mural was made as part of the inaugural Mosaic Workshop, a community initiative grant-funded City of Austin Cultural Arts Division program whose mission is to teach basic mosaic art-making techniques as well as give project-based hands-on experience and education about community and public art processes in an accessible and professional way.
Over eight weeks, instructors J Muzacz and Carmen Rangel along with Genevieve Levicki led volunteers in placing the 20mm (¾”) vitreous tiles into place to create the face and hands. Then over a few weekend long sessions, dozes of volunteers helped install on site.
The mural is 12ft tall by 16ft wide, installed in summer of 2019, and is still shining to this day.
Face and hands created with ¾” Morjo Vitreous glass tile. Background made of recycled mirror, iconic red jacket made of stained glass, and hat and piano made from custom and recycled ceramic tiles.
Susana Almanza Mosaic
Created in collaboration with PODER, Raasin in the Sun, and Mural Arts Philadelphia, this stepping stone mosaic is made up of over 12,000 tiles, individually placed by volunteers in just two days!
The mosaic depicts PODER co-founder, environmental activist, and politician Susana Almanza, from a reference photo taken by Rene Renteria.
Through the creation of this piece, close to 100 volunteers and community members came together and reflected on Susana’s legacy and work, which still resonates in East Austin to this day.
We all have to work together for the common good, for simple rights such as clean air and water, and neighborhoods safe from litter and industrial pollution. Susana and PODER continue this fight today, educating and organizing the public to take action and ensure a better quality of life for all.
The mosaic created with ¾” Vitreous glass tile, set on concrete pavers with Laticrete platinum 254 and grout with Spectralock, colored with Sherri Werner Hunt pigments.
The image shown is a drone photo from the stepping stone mural installed in the backyard at Something Cool Studios. Photo by Tony Moreno. 2022.
Ana Sisnett Mosaic
Ana ‘Technomama’ Sisnett founded Austin Free-Net, equitably approaching the digital divide by getting internet & digital technologies into public schools and libraries all over Austin!
In collaboration with Latinitas, The Mosaic Workshop created this tribute mosaic mural in 2021 as a part of our Legends Series, depicting community leaders who have impacted Austin and beyond.
Ana Sisnett’s portrait was created with the help of dozens of volunteers. The face is rendered in ¾” Vitreous glass tile, while the background was created with 100% recycled tiles and mirror.”
Installed with a combination Laticrete platinum 254 thinset and gorilla construction glue, along with various pigmented Permacolor select grout.
Freddy Fender Mosaic
Artist Carmen Rangel completed this Freddy Fender portrait just recently in July.
She had this to say about her mosaic portrait:
“He’s an icon, he’s a legend, he’s Freddy Fender!
This is a mosaic portrait I created for The Legends Project with ATX Mosaic Workshop.
It was so special to have the opportunity to honor a Tejano music icon and give him the recognition he deserves plus capturing his style and lush hair was super fun.
After lots of trial and error I came up with this impressionistic mosaic method and I’m so happy with it.”
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