Mosaic Odyssey 4-17 June 2017

Dates: June 4-17, 2017

The use of clay and porcelain in the creation of a complex mosaic work.

During this course Micheline is proposing to guide you through the use of various

techniques to enable you to realise your artistic aspirations in the best possible way.

You will be investigating different artistic and technical problems and how to solve

them using the arts of clay(earth) and glazing: 

• How do we use clay and porcelain to recreate fishing nets, jagged and broken rocks; how do we render the clarity of the turquoise sea using glazes.
• How do we break up an idea into its components and put it together again to create a meaningful and aesthetic unity.
• How to create armatures and structures of clay, how to support a mosaic, how to combine stone and earth, how to make use of the wealth of various techniques including modelling, drawing, firing, glazing to create a work of art.
• Techniques of slab building, combining clays, mixing and applying glazes, and firing in an electric kiln will be explored.

Professors: Micheline Divaris Lambert.

Dates: June 4-17, 2017

A group of volunteers from Kefalonia took to the open sea between Kefalonia and Ithaca to gather up the plastic debris floating there, which ends up polluting the beaches of the Ionian Islands. As there is no infrastructure for recycling this plastic rubbish on the islands, Micheline Divaris-Lambert had the idea of raising the awareness of both tourists and locals, about the dangers of turning the sea into a floating refuse dump, by using the debris as raw material for creating works of art.

The recovered buoys, bottles, life-jackets and other plastic objects will all disappear under thousands of pieces of mosaic, and each artist will be able to express his own commitment to environmental issues, according to his own sensibility. The participants in this epic Project Ionian Arts in June 2017 will begin their journey with two days of immersing themselves in the limpid waters of the Ionian Sea around Kefalonia, Ithaca, Arkoudi and Kastos, including an overnight stay with local villagers on the small island of Kastos…without a telephone, without internet. This is an Odyssey of the 21st Century, shorter than that of Odysseus who needed ten years to return to Ithaca, which we hope will have an impact on the environmental and artistic causes we support. We will return to Kefalonia, enriched by our experiences, and facing the sea, we will get down to work, as the artist is not only a dreamer, the artist is also a tireless worker, an informed technician, a creator. The first week of the workshop will be dedicated to personal creative research, investigating the materials to be used, stone, clay, glass, sea pebbles, shells. A piece of work will be completed on a wooden support with dimensions 40x30cm, and each participant will be able to take this home. In the second week, we will concentrate on the creation of mosaics using supports made of the plastic debris collected, which will have been sorted during the winter by the Kefalonian volunteer ecologists.

Each artist will have his own recycled support provided, and the collection of these individual works will create a unique work of art donated to the residents of the area, to be exhibited in the garden of Nikos’ restaurant, Sea Rock-oss; Nikos has generously provided a suitable working space for us which is conducive to creating art and will be open to all visitors.

Professors: Micheline Divaris Lambert.

Dates: May 20th – 3rd June, 2020

The first week will start on the 20^th of May with a boat trip to the Ionian Islands bordering Kefalonia and Ithaca.

Comparing this experience to an Odyssey, it is indeed an artistic journey around Ithaca, the island home of Ulysses. It is a journey in search of inspiration, with an artistic, not a touristic itinerary, a journey to dive into the depths of ourselves in the search for our most intimate, rich, and sensitive elements, echoed by our dives into the deep waters of the Ionian Sea. explanations on the history of the earth in this part of Greece and the nature of the rocks and strata will be given.

Back in Kefalonia, with the help of ceramic and mosaic techniques and materials, each student will  produce an original work, not a copy of a painting  or of another mosaic, using a flat or 3D support. The work will be based on photographs taken during the voyage at sea, found materials and materials that will be provided. Each student will be personally  guided in his artistic choices and in the techniques he wants to use, whether clay, porcelain, marble, glass slab….

Professors: Micheline Divaris Lambert.