“Mags” is a very special member of my family. My daughter, Kate, adopted her from a shelter near her home in Denver. A pittie mix, “Mags” served as a model for the blue dog mosaic we created in 2022 as an iconic image for the new Fort Worth AC&C facility in Haslet, TX.
My concept was to create a site near the Adoption Center building where adopters and their new pets could take selfies before heading to their forever home. The process of creating “Mags” is shown below.
Everything starts with the concept sketch. Here’s Mags’ color profile from the back. I used this to select the smalti color palette.
The folks at Blue Genie scanned the small dog sculpture maquette, routed it with the CNC in EPS foam, and assembled it. Photo by Blue Genie Art Industries.
Here’s a cutaway view of the armature inside. It contains bolts at the bottom for easy anchoring to the pedestal. Photo by Blue Genie Art Industries
Mags received multiple coats of Laticrete 254 Platinum Thinset. Each layer contains mesh and a different color of thinset to distinguish layers. Photo by Blue Genie Art Industries.
Once she arrived in my studio, we smoothed out the rough areas with more thinset. Then we numbered the facets and created color mixes for the shadows and highlights. We used electrical tape and construction paper to experiment with placement of eyes, nose and mouth.
Paper templates allowed us to work on studio tables, surrounded by our color mixes.
Two weeks of work later, Mags was ready for her big day. Blue Genie wrapped and secured her to their trailer, and she was off to her new home.
Special thanks to Ana Foncerrada, who assisted with the Mags mosaic fabrication! Photo by Stephen L. Becker.
…and thanks to Alida Labbe, Arts Fort Worth Public Art Project and Capital Budget Manager. She keeps me on track and organized. Photo by Sylvia Wilkins.
Here’s Mags, with a collar I made for her. The cool gabion selfie bench was fabricated by Albert T. Scherbarth.
And, finally, Mags the dog meets Mags the mosaic!