Erin Rogers
"Conduct your blooming in the noise and the whip of the whirlwind."
--Gwendolyn Brooks, In the MeccaI am a social and environmental justice advocate living in San Francisco, California. After years of painting with acrylics, I took a glass mosaics class in 2006. It gave me access to something near and dear to my heart: sparkly, glittering, bright-colored, shiny glass that I could cut up and smash up and put back together in a million different ways. I love the tactile pleasure of glass, the colors refracting at odd angles, and the ability to weave bits of my life into the mosaic--from pieces of broken tail-lights off the streets of the Mission, to smashed-out car windows and bus shelters, to tiny starfish and sea-shells from my favorite surfing spots.
Mosaics are a blooming in the whilrwind--they are things of beauty that are born of the chaos of life and yet transform it. They remind me of how many small pieces can fit together to make something magestic and powerful--like drops of water forming mighty rivers that cut through mountains of stone, or masses of people who rise up to break down instituions of oppression.
