....One fine day, I was in the kitchen having a glass of wine and the TV come on…..I swear it turned itself on…it was a sign!.......and there was a lady, a gorgeous artist from Tasmania, right in my face…she said “teach the children to mosaic, it is the answer to everything….” .... She was covering a lampshade in china and doing mosaics....Everything fell into place! I KNEW why I had been collecting all this stash. I now had a mission – to become a mosaic addict.
I ran to the garage. I found 10 year old tile glue that still worked (a miracle)!!!! I ran to an old bathtub in the garden - I got down in the mud and started to glue things on…like a wild woman. I was in heaven. I resigned from my lucrative job (am I crazy!) the next day and gave up my career to play with broken things in my garage. Things grew and grew and I was making mosaics. From garage to studio I was teaching and very happy! Self-taught and fancy-free…I did my own thing., but crowds were starting to notice and wanted to play more.
During the classes I would ask students to report back if they experience any reaction to mosaic products. This way I can check on them and the products, for health and safety. Over the years many students had reported an itch and we had researched everything and to no avail. The itch only calmed down after a bout of intense mosaicking and reaching Zone 4, reaching their own mosaic U4EA (mosaic addicts know this is mosaic perfection, perfect bliss, making mosaics and forgetting everything else!). My mother's itch was dreadful.….
When Dave joined the business with me full time he started to record the statistics. It was incredible. Partners of my students were complaining of these symptoms after their partners had done a mosaic course with me or met me at a rubbish dump: – no desire to cook or to clean…and an itch on the right arm. Doctors were unable to sort it out; perhaps an allergy???
After trying everything, I called in the expert Tom, my Bug Man! He checked the place out for dust mites and without asking he went in to my STASH ROOM!!!!!!! No-one ever goes in there but me , it was my mosaic mecca!
Tom came up to my office and said, "I think I might have found the source of your itching problems. He had my piece of wine bottle from the island and there were little golden bugs crawling in it and living in the shells…some had moved into empty vegemite jars and had found bits of mesh to make a nest! Golden grout dust bugs!. I would not let Tom spray the stash room until I took the bugs to be tested. He had never seen anything like these bugs. We phoned the Unviversity.....
That night, Dave was sleeping soundly next to me in the in the diva suite bed,. I was nipping away in a frenzy, using the mOzCutta. I picked up the old wine bottle from the beach. I had put it on my bed side table during the day. I fondled the bottle and remembered the night long ago under the stars, on the island. Suddenly, the room lit up PINK and whoosh!!!!!!!!! Floating in the air above the bed was a huge thing….hovering, all green and spiky…..and suddenly it spoke!
“I am the mosaic bug. You have been under the mosaic influence for 7 years…you were given the gift. Your days in training wheels are over - you have done your apprentice-ship in mosaic madness……Read my lips…you have been chosen
