MOSAIC ARTIST - MARY LOU ROMANO
Academy Member, Mary Lou Romano’s practice has always been guided by curiosity. A self-professed workshop addict, she began her mosaic journey by taking classes at the Chicago Mosaic School. She was fortunate to take workshops with Italian mosaic artists, like Matteo Randi, Sue Giannotti, and her favourite artist Maestro Verdiano Marzi.
During a Modern Expressions 3D workshop with Maestro Marzi, Mary Lou constructed a beautiful butterfly sculpture and when it came time to mosaic it, she planned to put down large pieces and be finished in a week!!
But the Maestro reminded her, “your butterfly is very delicate and so must be your tesserae….very tiny.”
It took her about a year to complete!
Mary Lou Romano and her piece
‘Enchanted Wing’.
Mary Lou at the Chicago Mosaic School.
Mary Lou and her Completed Butterfly.
Tell us about any creative routines or habits you have for getting work made?
Mary Lou dedicates lots of time to her practice, having fun in her studio (the kitchen table) using smalti, marble and sometimes bits of shell, rusty metal and rocks.
She says, the art is in the cutting, sculpting and chipping away at the material to capture the reflections and beauty of each piece…. this process takes time.
Sometimes I go to sleep with a mosaic problem and wake up with the answer,
I think my Guardian Angel was a mosaicist!
Scavenge, Sort, Stash, Crack.....
Mary Lou, like many of us, will fill her carry-on luggage with her “finds” while travelling.
The Red Rocks of Sedona from 2021, is one of her earlier works. She used the rocks she picked up on the road when she was in the Southwest, USA, and the work was accepted into an exhibition in Nazzano, Italy the next year.
If something is bothering me, I just start cracking open some rocks and soon I am in my own world.
Mosaic, reflect, remove, rework….
From her many hours being creatively curious, Mary Lou reflects,
I am starting to see some improvement… and I like that.
I like feeling that I learned or improved on something with each project, and I don’t mind ripping a part out – to do it over, sometimes more than once, until I feel it looks how I wanted.
Above you can see Mary Lou’s process working on her Still Life Study from Level 5: Exploring Genre – Still Life.
She reworked the Lemon and bowl multiple times.
Apple with Bottle and Bowl.
Mary Lou Romano
CHANGING PERSPECTIVES
Mary Lou has just completed the Art of Andamento Level 6 Course – Moving Towards Abstraction.
This course teaches students four ways that images or ideas can arrive at abstraction.
1. Multiple Perspectives – Inspired by the Cubists
2. Music and Synesthesia – Inspired by Kandinsky
3. Reduction and Minimalism – Inspired by Mondrian
4. Colour Fields and Polygons – Inspired by Rothko and Stella
The study below was the outcome of Unit 1: Multiple Perspectives, where students were asked to set up and draw a still life from a range of view points, before combining them into a abstract study.
Other Examples of Mary Lou's Coursework
Level 4 Shell Study
Level 4 Lily Study
Workshop learning transformed
Mary Lou attended a workshop with Maestro Verdiano Marzi where the substrate for this sculpture was conceived. She continued to work on the piece independently and has recently resolved the stand with the help of Ahmed Ibrahim (AGI Mosaics).
Enchanted Wing
33 inches x 12 Inches x 2 inches
Smalti, Marble, Dalle de Verre, Oro, kyanite, obsidian, slate.
NEW EXPLORATIONS
Venetian Windows is Mary Lou’s most recent work, grew from a workshop with Maestra Vera Belikova and is inspired by Maestro Marco de Luca’s style with inclusions of white marble and seashells.
