Our living spaces are coming together beautifully; art begins to coat the walls, quite literally. My mother, Diane, has always cultivated and nurtured my inner artist, so it is no surprise that when we’re together, we create art. Our media of choice this time: mosaics. I last mosaicked when I was eight, making a cracked tile pig stepping stone. I suppose in hindsight, this time I should have started with something small, but that has never been the Laughter-Rousseau way. So I tackled a 27 square foot wall, behind a hand-wash sink underneath the staircase of the Centro.
Mosaics are fun in that they shift and shape depending on what you have to work with – it’s a puzzle, really, the only difference being that, as the artist, you get to say what it will look like when it is put together. I had just come back from eight months in New Zealand with shells in my pockets and ocean coastline on my mind. Also, being the opportunistic “collectors” we are, we ended up with bags and bags of broken tiles from friends who had redone their pool. These became my pelican feathers. A variety of turquoise tiles were easily sourced locally. This became my water and sky. And then it started to take shape…
Meanwhile, our Rottweiler, Dulci had nine puppies. Highly entertaining and always underfoot, they were a fun distraction.
Simultaneously Diane was working on a series of jungle-themed mosaics to line the walls of our new guesthouse outdoor showers. We have always loved the French painter Henri Rousseau’s jungle scenes (no family relation, though in artistic spirit we are of the same tribe.) It too was large and ambitious and, after popping over occasionally to help her, I was soon sucked in. Loving the flexible work hours and the spaciousness of our new shop, we often worked past sunset, sipping on fruity farm wines and willing dinner to cook itself.
Not only will our future visitors get to shower under the stars, with plant tendrils cascading from high up on the wall, but it will feel as though you’ve stepped into a magical jungle world, where monkeys run off with oranges and lions casually avert their eyes.
