Grand Opening

Joe Wilson was there for the unveiling and a Salish ceremony was performed.

The fountain and the mosaic in the beautiful square of Uptown, Victoria.

Final Days

Just to make grouting on the ground more challenging, if we put our hands on the ground, our gloves manage to pull some of the grout out.

Today we had a blast grouting for 10 hours!

Finally, the end of day 26!

They took down the tent for fire safety reasons but still have to keep the public from seeing the mosaic. Unfortunately, we didn't even get to see it, this is what it was like when we arrived in the morning of day 27 to pack up!

End of our installation! We will have final photos of this mosaic, fountain on and all at mosaika.com when they've had the unveiling.

Round and Round We Go

After two days off, the jets are in and apparently working well!

The jets on our mosaic knocked loose a few pieces so we spend the morning replacing the missing ones.

We are using two types of grout, sanded for the big seams and unsanded for the regular seams.

End of day 25!

A Cup Of Joe

Today we are completing the install with our last 17 pieces.

You need two people back buttering on a piece this large.

Mike is troweling in the last piece.

Our last piece, it better fit!

With all the pieces in, we spend the afternoon peeling and fixing the rest of the mosaic.  The other people with us are installing the lights in the circles.

The lights! Tomorrow and the next day they are installing and testing the jets so we can't work.

End of day 22!

Tops Off!

It's time to take the wooden tops off the jets. Because they are practically cemented in from installing around them, Matt uses a roto-zip to grind away the cement before removing all 16 carefully, though a few pieces did come with them.

This is what's underneath, soon to be a light and a water jet!

Project Architect John Saliken pays us a visit and lays the ceremonial last piece of smalti.

It clearly wasn't the last piece but it made it into the final mosaic!  End of day 21!

The South Side

It's hard to look cool on a worksite but we try our best!

This is the last of the area Mike has to even out before we install the south side.

More new mesh for more fixes.

Even though we're in a tent and there's no direct sunlight, we still sponge the area to install so the mortar lasts a bit longer.

The mortar additive we use combined with the temperature means we can peel the front tape off of things we've installed only a few hours earlier.

Sometimes the mosaic is as bright as our reflective safety vests.

End of day 20!

The North Side

Our map of the pieces has been less useful then we thought, we've basically memorized all the shapes!

Laboring on with important fixes.

Guidelines are always important for installing but in this case, they've changed so much, each piece has their own.

We are completing the circle on the north side.

End of day 18!

This is a lot of extra space to add!

But it is not as simple as adding rows of smalti. Instead, we have to cut the pieces up to maintain the same shape, and make the changes in the center

So we continue on with more fixes...

End of day 19! This is actually the center but we spent the whole day doing fixes so there isn't anything new installed.