Sierra to the Sea Mosaic Mural
The Sierra to the Sea Mosaic Mural, creation lead by Katy Fries, original concept by Michael Kent Murphy, in the School Park Community Garden behind Auburn City Hall and the Auburn Police Station. Completed August, 2016.
Your view of the mural as you enter the garden.
In September 2014, the concept for the mural was drawn on the wall in chalk.
The completed mural in 2016.
During summer of 2015, Katy Fries, with the assistance of Molly Fries and others, took clay and tools out to summer camps and events throughout Auburn.
Over 1000 kids and adults applied textures to slabs of clay.
The textured clay slabs were taken to the Fries family's home studio, where Katy, Molly and Brian Fries used a variety of cutters to divide the slabs into individual tiles.
An estimated 20,000 handmade tiles were created, here being laid out to dry without warping.
The tiles were bisque fired using kilns from several Auburn area ceramic artists, here with the able assistance of Gerda Francesca.
The bisqued tiles were glazed and fired to 2300 degrees Fahrenheit at the rural home studio of Virginia Dains.
Tile layout began in September 2015. Here Katy Fries and Michael Kent Murphy are laying out an early section, experimenting with design, on tables at the School Park Community Garden site.
The completed sections would be held together with sheets of specialty clear tape designed for mosaic work. Thinset mortar was applied to the target section of the wall, then the sheets of taped tiles were carefully lifted and embedded in the mortar. Here Molly Fries is ensuring that each individual tile in the sheet is sufficiently pushed into the mortar.
After the mortar set for a day or two, the tape was peeled off, revealing the tiles in their permanent placement.
Closeup view of tiles set in mortar on the wall.
This process continued practically every Saturday for 10 months. Hundreds of artists, friends and passers-by lent a hand in the tile layout process.
Michael Kent Murphy and Kathleen Sailor install the tiles representing the San Francisco Bay Area, as Katy Fries stands by to help.
The final sections of tile were mounted to the wall, here by Brian Fries, Ryan Goodpastor and Molly Fries, in May 2016.
The final waves of the Pacific Ocean, full of fun sea creatures.
With all the tiles installed, Katy Fries works on grouting, ensuring that the spaces between the tiles are filled in with color coordinated grout colors.
Ryan Goodpastor and Katy Fries work on cleaning grout off of the textured surfaces of the tiles.
A close up section of grouted tiles.
Job completed in August 2016.
This 800 square foot tile mosaic mural is was completed in August, 2016, on the wall along the School Park Community Garden's driveway, behind Auburn City Hall and the Auburn Police Station.
The project was lead by Arts Commissioner Katy Fries, designed by Arts Commissioner Michael Kent Murphy. Concept development began during the summer of 2014, and production of the mural began in June 2015.
The Auburn Arts Commission has sponsored all material and service costs for the production of the mural, with thousands of hours of artistic and installation efforts donated by well over 1,000 members of the greater Auburn community.
Video tribute by Joel Kirkendall
Design
Michael's design concept provides an artistic interpretation of an overhead view of the American and Sacramento rivers as they flow from the High Sierra, through Auburn and Sacramento, into the San Francisco Bay and out into the Pacific Ocean.
The land mass is divided into non-representative color blocks, with a rock-lined blue river winding across the state. With Katy's design input, the land mass has been built using around 20,000 hand-made tiles, while the river has been designed primarily as a classic mosaic of broken commercial tiles.
The concept design left a great deal of room for artistic interpretation of the detailed design as the project developed.
Materials
Throughout the summer of 2015, Katy and her daughter Molly Fries worked with over 1,000 youths at summer programs and other events throughout the Auburn area, with the assistance of numerous adult helpers. Each participant was handed a 6-inch by 9-inch slab of clay and given access to bins full of stamps, toys, tools, and odds & ends to create texture on the slabs. These slabs were then taken home, allowed to partially dry, then cut into tiles ranging from 1/2-inch to 4-inches, in circles, squares, diamonds, hexagons and octagons.
These tiles were bisque-fired in several kilns volunteered by artists around town, then glazed and high-fired for durability with the assistance of artist Virginia Dains, in various shades of green, orange, red, yellow, purple and gold.
In the meantime, Michael obtained donations of over 200 square feet of commercial tiles in various shades of blue.Tile tape, thinset mortar, grout, buckets and tools were purchased. Work tables, shade structures, ladders and scaffolding were borrowed.
Since Katy was also manager of the School Park Community Garden at the time, the storage shed on the premises was available, allowing tools and supplies to be kept on site.
Installation
The first tiles were mounted to the wall on September 5, 2015. Layout and installation continued on practically every dry Saturday, and the occasional other day, until the last section of tile was mounted on June 5, 2016.
The original design of the mural allowed for a great deal of creativity and evolution in the detail design work as the process went on. A typical development day would generate around 20 square feet of new tile installed.
Dozens of volunteers contributed to the detail design and installation - those working 10 or more days on the design, in addition to Katy, Michael and Molly, include Arts Commissioner Brian Fries, Kathleen Sailor and Ryan Goodpastor. (Brian and Ryan have both joined the Arts Commission since beginning the mural work).
Finish Work
July of 2016 was dedicated to grouting the whole wall. Katy and Ryan were the heavy workers on this project, with considerable help from Brian and others. Custom grout colors were mixed for each color section, to provide contrast with the main tiles and the highlight colors.
Dedication
The mural was dedicated with a celebratory event on August 5, 2016, with words, music, food and fun. Over 200 people attended the event.