The other day I was out at one of our suppliers picking up tile (of course) and I decided to check out their show room while I waited, the new sicis display was out http://www.sicis.com/beautiful glass tiles, we sell a lot of there stuff its great. What freaked me out was they also sell many pre-made mosaic, also really nice, well made, clever, funny, not what I expected or wanted to see, why because its our competition, ours and every other mosaic artist out there who wants to get commercial work and its a factory… so who makes this stuff?
Maybe I shouldn’t worry, but I am, I lost two jobs last year to a computer that could do the work faster and for less money, not better… but this stuff is pretty damn cool and I know it is not cheap, but it may be cheaper than any artist can do and its …. outsourced no artists were hired to make this stuff…
the pieces above Maria and I made to go on the sculptures at Midtown http://www.greenemosaic.com/index.cfm?&id=49
http://www.midtownglobalmarket.org/
they look kind of like the fabric inspired pieces made at the sicis factory
talk to me about this….
Tim Moore said,
January 23, 2007 @ 3:57 am
Pretty impressive stuff.
However, I get the feeling that the folks that can afford this level of product are the sort of folks who would spend either of our yearly earnings on one weeks worth of personal care products for themselves.
Sometime when I’m at the Stick, I’d be curious to hear any of the details about the jobs lost to a computer.
Cherie Ranfranz said,
January 29, 2007 @ 10:32 pm
Wow, I just went to the sicis site and saw the Flower Power collection – very pretty but lame if its created by a computer.
Rob said,
April 9, 2007 @ 4:13 pm
Yeah, I’ve seen similar items on eBay (http://stores.ebay.com/MICRO-MOSAIC-ART), and it worries me, too. I’m not a professional mosaicist (phoo, given how little I’ve done lately, I barely qualify as a mosaicist at all), but this kind of thing makes me wonder if I’ll ever be able to be one.
Kyle said,
September 22, 2007 @ 8:34 pm
Sicis is all made by hand in italy.. they do about a sf and a half per day