A group of amateur artists are helping restore a damaged community mosaic celebrating Tavistock’s history.
The Tavistock Community Mosaic is being painstakingly relaid piece by piece after years of weathering has caused the plywood backing to be soaked with rain and the tiny tiles to fall off.
So, with the help of Andy Cairns, of West Devon Art Workshops, a group of volunteers is repairing it methodically so it can be re-hung in a public space in Tavistock and give more protection.
The mosaic was erected in 2006 on the outside of the Tavistock Pannier Market after being designed by professional artist Emma Spring and created by a wide range of people from all backgrounds. The mosaic features locations of archaeological and industrial, commercial buildings and schools sites that have existed since the 1830s.
Andy said: “This is a prominent piece of public art which was created by the community and it is being restored to its former beauty by the community, again with people with little or experience volunteering their time on a very time-consuming and painstaking project.
“The mosaic has been photographed for reference and then divided into a grid of squares. Each square is then traced as a pattern and the original tiles are fitted into the traced pattern. If there are missing tiles we try and find colour-matched replacements, but if we can’t find them, we find the nearest. Some colours are not produced any more, which makes it difficult. We use tools to make copies of missing shapes and retain the original artisan style, so it’s not too perfect and just like that produced by ordinary people learning as they go along.”
The tiles are laid on a plastic grid to be reattached to a new frame, due to be completed by Christmas.
On of the volunteers, Christina Oldfield, said: “The colour-matching and use of tiles is very familiar to me as I am a ceramicist and I wanted to lend my expertise to making sure an important piece of art is not lost to the community.”
