Elena Morone

Artist of the Season: Winter 2022-23

The Story, because I always have a story…

Sometime around 2015 my friend Lauren invited me to a Groupon class at the Chicago Mosaic School. I had painted and done xylography and engraving before, even some sculpture, and I taught basic carpentry and electronics but had never ever done mosaics. My friend Heidi likes to joke about how I came out of that first class telling everyone “This is not for me. Too structured, too many rules.” And for some reason, I did go back and the rest is history.

I overnighted at Heidi and Pablo’s, Anita and Stan’s, and Diane and Steve’s places in the city so I didn’t have to schlep back every night to the suburbs when I was taking 9:00 to 5:00 classes 5 days in a row at the Chicago Mosaic School.

Now that I moved into the city my neighbors collect broken china and crystal for me, message me when something is available on the Buy Nothing app, sometimes they even drive to my home to bring broken

pots from somewhere else in the city because someone happened to mention my work in an environmental group that tries to minimize trash. My neighbor Maria showcases my work at her shop Raw Edge and my neighbor, friend, and guru Jeanna is now hosting my first solo show.

I’m telling you this to explain how my art was and is a group effort. I hope I’m telling your stories through my art. It is to you that I’m dedicating this show.

The Technique

I use smalti, broken china, stained glass, pebbles, stone, and slate which I place on colored adhesive cement or mortar. Smalti is a thick glass that has been made since the 4th century CE around the world. To cut the material into little pieces called “tesserae” I use two-wheelcutters or a special hammer and a hardy (It’s a chisel on a stand). Since the tesserae are hand cut, they are irregular. Whenever I find a particular piece that fits super well in a spot, I greet it and say: Hi Cutie! and I smile.

The tesserae is placed on the mortar, which can be colored, and dries within a couple of hours. I like to place my pieces in a pattern called Andamento. Andar in Spanish means “to go”. Andamento describes the way the tesserae “walks” on the mortar making paths as it goes.

The poet Antonio Machado wrote in his poem “Caminante No Hay

Camino”: Al andar se hace camino… “By walking you make the path, and turning, you look back at a path you will never tread again. Wanderer, there is no path, only wakes in the sea”