Featured Artist Emma Cavell

British artist Emma Cavell creates magical mosaics inspired by her love of gardens and nature. View more of her delightful work on her website.

 

 

I came to art through feeling a deep appreciation for my early life. I grew up in a super abundant garden, bursting with wondrous flowers and bountiful blossoms. From a young age, I learned how to meet with nature in her fullness of spirit.

 

 

My family life was coloured with complexity, tragedy and challenge. I found great solace within the wholeness of garden space. It heightened my awareness of our deeply interconnected nature. Our bohemian home was full of floral interiors, antiques, unconventional ornaments and myriad curiosities. Many of them continue to inspire and adorn my mosaic art today.

 

 

In my early twenties, I began exploring the process of making sculptural ceramics at a local art school. During that time, I was invited to join a weekend course making mosaics. I loved the idea of working in instant colour with form. I meandered with the mosaic process and fell in love!

 

 

I later became an artist in residence at a local historical house and spiritual centre which offered courses, retreats and a B&B. People visited from all over the country and around the world. This enabled me to meet and explore with many colourful seekers.

My studio was the ground floor of a small 17th century listed cottage in the grounds of the centre. The cottage looked out on a wonderful walled garden which I helped to care for, harvesting inspiration for my art.

 

 

I am inspired by the beauty and generosity of our natural world. It offers an authentic, curative ground of endless wonderment and creativity. My garden is a great source of delight. Teeming with many colours, it releases heartening aromas and kindred vibrations.

 

 

I’m passionate about vintage china. It offers an endless possibility of pattern and hue, myriad tender tones and expressive textures. Fine bone china seems to enliven a deep sense of kinship within my root of creativity.

 

 

The whole process of making mosaics is a miraculous quest of gathering together diverse materials—from house clearances to charity and curiosity shops—enabling an endless enchanted flow of abundant potentiality and great fun!

I’m always in deep appreciation for unique donated gifts of broken antiques, vintage wonders, figurines, vases and stained glass. My studio abounds with many colour-coded palettes, brimming with vintage china treasures. This enables me to be in spontaneous mosaic flow with ease of application.

 

 

I spend relaxed time musing with mosaic movement. I create space for daydreaming, wondering and glimpsing potentiality. Often, I play with a painterly process pre-mosaic, with the intention of freeing up a fluid sense of inner motion.

 

 

As I begin making mosaics I often just sit and start loosely nipping and cutting, aligning myself with little sparks of angelic inspiration. While gently shaping each piece, miracles begin transpiring through mosaic metamorphosis.

 

 

My intention is to encourage harmony to emerge from diverse, discarded materials and to share the deeply restorative potential of reawakening creativity through brokenness. “Peace by piece” I create beauty and share the joy and wonder of our natural world through memorable mosaics.

 

Artist Emma Cavell invites you to follow her on Instagram and Pinterest.

 

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