Working Method
Hi! – My name is Martin Cheek and I live in England – in a seaside town called Broadstairs on the Kent coast. Charles Dickens lived here – next door in fact and our house is Georgian and was built in 1720.My story is that I went on a game show over here called ‘the Weakest Link’ and won! I spent the prize money on a glass fusing kiln and Bulls eye Dichromatic glass. Although I’ve been fusing glass for about twenty years in my ceramic kiln, this special new kiln gives me more control, allowing me to be more specific in my working methods.
Basically I have two ways of working – one is to design a mosaic and specifically cut and make the pieces, like in a piece of marquetry or stained glass and gradually built up the picture over a period of weeks. Usually the pieces get smaller and smaller as I fill in the remaining areas – I then mosaic the background in the normal way. The other method is what I call my ‘free style’. This is where I make sets of fusions and then play around to come up with a mosaic – so say in the case of the fusion birds – I make sets of wings, heads, crests and tails. So although I know that the elements in these sets belong together, the mosaic has not been designed at this stage. I then assemble and by playing around with the pieces, the mosaic comes to life.
The dichromatic glass, as its name suggests has two colours within it and the colour changes depending on the angle at which you look at it. This can be green and blue or gold and purple – whatever. Of course this holographic effect doesn’t show up on a single photograph!
Of the pieces submitted, the Leopard’s and cat’s belong to the first method and the Turkey is a free style mosaic.
I work on about ten mosaics at a time, choosing which piece to work on depending on my mood. I find realism the hardest thing to achieve so I have to be feeling brave to tackle those ones!
I love making the mosaics. They ARE meant to be amusing. so I hope that you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoy making them!