For four months Carolyn Elaine worked in collaboration with the art teacher Darah Gannon, at Jacqueline Vaughn Occupational HS for students with mild to moderate cognitive disabilities. Her advanced art students were asked – which artists have inspired and influenced your own personal style of art? With over 400 square feet of blank canvas space right outside of their classroom, the advanced art students exploded with creative energy.

Inspired By is a 400 sq ft bricolague mosaic comprised of broken tile, mirror, clay relief pieces, hand glazed and fired tiles, ceramics plates and text. Each student contributed various artworks highlighting artists such as Chuck Close, Georgia O’Keeffe, Isaiah Zagar (developed the bricolague process); Van Gogh, Basquiat, Picasso and more. Each student also included a personal statement of what art means to them along with their signature.

Elaine met with the students two to three times a week during their two hour advanced art period. In all, it took two months to design and create the artwork and another two months to apply each piece by hand and grout. Much of the tile was donated by two local tile stores - Tile Outlet and Apex Tile. This was also an opportunity for Ms. Gannon to clean house and get rid of all of the scrap, unclaimed and broken ceramic clay work from previous years.