Monday, November 21, 2011

More Green Hills Mosaics

Today's mosaics are found at Green Hills Cemetery in Rancho Palos Verdes.



I blogged about the World War II Monument and mosaics here a few weeks ago. These flower mosaics run along the south side of the cemetery, closer to where the old chapel of St. Peter's is being reassembled.
These crypts--at least the top ones--are little mini-crypts that hold ashes and cremated remains. They're too high up to be decorated with flowers, so the idea was to install the flower mosaic as a permanent tribute.
There are actually four sets of these flower mosaics, each a little different. Here's a close-up of one tiny section, so the mosaic work can be seen. Like at the World War II monument, no grout shows, and the tiles are all small rectangles with a more matte finish--as opposed to being glassy and shiny.

Green Hills spokesman Ray Frew told me that they went through the International Cemetery Association to find their mosaic artist: Cheryl Neuberger of Florida. Now it never occurred to me that (a) institutions would look for artists through such an association, and (b) that picking an artist 3000 miles away would make good business sense. But that's what happened.
I don't know if the artist advertised with the Association or was recommended by another member. But I love the idea of artists advertising in membership newsletters, maybe sandwiched in between coffin suppliers and stonemasons.
Sadly, Cheryl Neuberger died unexpectedly after these mosaics were completed, and I could not find more references to her work.

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