Carol Lancour can find beauty in just about anything. She jokes that she can look at a chunk of concrete and see potential. And while she says her friends think she's crazy, there is a greater purpose behind her vision.
"For me, finding something discarded and repurposing it into something beautiful and useful is its own reward," she says. "I strive to make every project I undertake aesthetically pleasing, well-made and purposeful."
Carol used to paint and draw to satiate her need to be creative, but she turned to glass when a friend showed her how to cut up stained glass for mosaics. She bought her first set of cutting tools from Delphi in 2000.
"Glass comes in every beautiful color, refracts light and sparkles in the sun," she says. "I like the durability of something so fragile."
Carol began creating mosaics with her cut up glass, starting with a mosaic flower pot. Her projects eventually grew to be much larger.
"I don't know a lot of other people who do large-scale mosaic projects with pieces that are mostly hand cut and -inch or smaller, she says.
Her favorite recycled project is an herb garden planter made from cinder blocks excavated from her back yard and broken glass from a Tiffany-style lamp shade (see photo, top left). I smashed the shade with my hammer and used all the opaque white glass from it, she says. The pattern is an olive branch that wraps around the whole thing. You don't need to spend a lot of money to create something really cool.
Another of her favorites is a mosaic floor she created in 2009 from scrap stained glass (see photos at right.)
Her designs are traditional and beautiful. She uses roman antiquity designs and traditional elements, like a guilloche border, combined with really vibrant colors.
Studying art history influences a lot of what I do, she says. I'm tied to the past, but I live in the now. She now creates mosaics for the same reason she studies art history, so she can understand why objects and places look the way they do, and why she exists in this time and place.
She is also dabbling in other glass crafts including fusing. I took a glass fusing class last summer and made border tiles. I am incorporating them into a bathroom wall project with the theme of birds and flowers.
She says it's important to learn new skills that enhance what you love doing.
Carol currently resides in sunny San Fransisco, where the flower-filled gardens continue to inspire her. It is this appreciation for nature that drives her passion for recycling. She doesn't want to see her community covered in debris.
Look for more exciting pieces from Carol on Etsy and on her website www.midcenturymosaics.com or Email her at [email protected].
Carol Lancour: Old Glass, New Projects
