MAKING THE
PIECES FIT
RAHNEE GLADWIN’S MOSAIC CREATIONS PLAY WITH COLOR AND LIGHT By JACKIE BENTON
A happy dragon stamps its feet in the kitchen, anticipating the next hot meal. Rainbow-hued fish swim lazily amid the colorful reefs and corals of a lovely master bath. Tiles and glass combine to create a glittering reflection of the open sea, inviting diners in a restaurant to see themselves as not dining beside the ocean, but as part of the ocean itself. Mosaic and tile artist Rahnee Gladwin, Allied AIA, sees her world as a mosaic artist as one with infinite possibilities and outcomes — from helping create beautiful mosaic pieces for kitchens, baths and swimming pools to selecting tile for homes, restaurants and even a historic restoration work in Fredericksburg and a lighthouse in Port Aransas.
“
T
he materials, the vision, the permanence of the project you’re creating… this is something that is not going to be here today and gone tomorrow. There is always the possibility it will be here quite a long time, and will be true to that space and be spectacular at the same time. So, it’s a real challenge to make it absolutely wonderful,” Gladwin says. “There are so many different textures and colors with the medium that you can play with that make it a really wonderful artistic medium to be able to work with. It’s very plastic in the sense of what you can bring into the project as far as the materials go, and what you can do with it to evoke the sense of different types of things.” Gladwin, a Texas Licensed Interior Designer, an Allied Member of the American Institute of Architects and a member of the Tile Heritage Foundation has worked exclusively with stone, glass, metal and ceramic tile since 1997, and specializes in custom mosaic design and assembly. While Gladwin was fascinated with ceramics in art school, her chosen career was as an interior designer in San Antonio. “As an interior designer, I had more and more clients asking for interesting tile for their projects, and I just couldn’t get the information I needed. The people in the tile showrooms couldn’t really tell us anything about what they were selling, and I needed to know because handmade tile is a very specific product — and suddenly I saw a need for someone with this interest and knowledge of ceramics.”
urbanhomemagazine.com
Photo by CASEY DUNN URBAN HOME AUSTIN – SAN ANTONIO
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