I am the mosaic mam

When I suggest it, my son is sceptical.

“Remember what happened the last time you dragged me to see flipping mosaics?” he says accusingly.

The boy has a memory like an elephant. But it’s a fair cop.

We stayed on a farm in northern Italy the summer when he was nine.  I’d read in the guidebook that the nearby town of Spilimbergowas home to a Mosaic University dating back two centuries.  Imagine!  An actual university where artists go to perfect their craft and get a certificate in mosaic-making!

I thought a pilgrimage there would be much more rewarding than another day lazing around the pool.  I mean, who doesn’t love a shattered tile reassembled to make a pretty pattern? The lad wasn’t keen, so I hired bikes to make it an adventure.  And off we pootled, in thirty-two-degree heat, with nothing but a paper map, sun cream and plenty of water in our rucksacks.  It was arduous work, cycling in that oppressive sunshine.  It was also a whopping 50km to our destination.  But we trundled on, both dreaming of what awaited us at the end of our cross-country trek (him – pizza, me – ornate mosaics).  

Reader, when we finally arrived – many wrong turns and meltdowns later – the Mosaic school was closed.  I’d forgotten to google the opening hours, and in that beautifully random Italian way, it was closed midweek.  I’ll never forget the fury on his face when we realised.  Margarita and gelato were no compensation. 

So this summer, in New York, the sixteen-year-old lad looks at me like I’m insane when I suggest we head to St. Mark’s Square to find “some mosaics on lampposts”.  Once again, the guidebook seduced me with talk of a mosaic trail in the East Village. 

“But it can’t be closed!  You can’t close lampposts!” I protest, and finally, he agrees to come.  We’d landed in the middle of a heatwave, and the subway with broken air con is like Dante’s seventh circle of hell.  “This had better be worth it”, he glowers. 

When we arrive in the East Village, we spend ten minutes wandering around, looking for our first lamppost.  “What’s so good about them, anyway?” he asks.  So I enthusiastically recount the story from the guidebook that has captured my imagination. 

The mosaic trail we’re hunting was created over many decades by a Vietnam veteran called Jim Power (a superhero name, surely?).  Struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after being discharged from the US Army, he sought a creative outlet to keep his mind busy.  Inspired by the mosaics he’d seen in the temples of Vietnam, Jim started decorating the lampposts of the East Village with pieces of small objects he found on the streets – tiles, ceramics, glassand mirrors.  Often homeless and withoutmoney, Jim still found a way to create.  He became like a magpie hunting the glass and ceramics he needed; each ornate lamppost contained over 1000 fragments. 

Sadly, the Anti-Graffiti Task Force targeted much of his work as guerrilla art during the Giuliani years and removed some of his mosaics (boo hiss).  Yet, still, Jim persisted.  Today, the city of New York recognises the value of his work, and he is widely celebrated and sought after for commissions.  

What’s not to love about this magical tale of artistic triumph over bureaucratic ignorance?

The Victorian mam in me thinks this will be a good lesson in persistence and the power of theunwavering drive to create.  Undeterred by the eye rolls and teenage scepticism, I march onwards. 

Eventually, we find our first lamppost, and it’s undeniably impressive.

Jim Power has transformed a pedestrian piece of street furniture into a stunning, ornate feature. I feel vindicated when the lad swiftly whips out his phone (For lo! I’d delivered a sight worthy of Instagram!). We’re busily photographing our second lamppost, a few hundred metres away when I notice a grey-haired pensioner in a mobility scooter counting out pieces of ceramic on his lap. It couldn’t be, could it?

When a passing Noo Yoiker high-fives the man with an enthusiastic “Hey Jim!”,  I realise this is our guy.  The very man responsible for this trail of wonder.  “Are you the Jim Power who does the mosaics here?” I ask, and he is delighted to be recognised. 

We end up sitting in the street with him, under the blazing sun, while he regales us with his colourful life story. He tells us how creating these works of art saved him when he was at rock bottom and about his battle with the city authorities to preserve his work. The lad, suddenly interested, listens intently and we both fire questions at this remarkable man. I think he’s flattered to have Welsh people know about his work (“I was born in Ireland, and us Celts stick together!” he chuckles). When we’re done, he insists on giving us a gift each – a mosaic necklace charm for me and an ornate belt buckle for the lad.

It takes a lot to impress that boy – he is a teenager, after all. If it isn’t on Snapchat or football-shaped, he’s not interested. But as we walk away, he turns to me, clutching his memento, and says “Fair play, mum, that was VERY cool”.

One-all. On the drive home from the airport, I ask him for his highlight of the trip. Would you believe it? Meeting Jim Power, a legend of the East Village, features in his top three.

Will it be enough to erase the memory of that arduous – and pointless – bike ride across the Italian countryside in ridiculous temperatures? Only time will tell.  

But I’ll persist in dragging him to see random stuff from guidebooks. Because while it doesn’t happen often, sometimes the pieces just fall together beautifully.