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Finished mural on the Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts Building

Sharon Zook gives instruction on mural installation at the Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts Building on July 18

Finished mural on the Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts Building

The fourth floor of the Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts building on the corner of Eighth and Cumberland streets in Lebanon is filled with five gallon buckets of tiles sorted by color.

“It's the stuff people throw out,” said Sharon Zook, President of the Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts, describing the tiles. “That's how we started at first because it's actually quite inexpensive.”

For the fifth summer in a row, Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts sponsored a mosaic installation in Lebanon, this year on the side of their own building. However, the normally two-week project, which started on July 18, was held up due to city regulations and was not finished until August 26. 

This year’s project “Where There is Art, There is Life” features a mandala forming a sun to honor former board member Angela Funk, who died of cancer last year.

Fittingly, Zook also said members of the community remember Funk for creating mandala stones.

Zook said her organization surveys the public to find out what they’d like to see in their community for each year’s mosaic.

“We took several photos of some of Angie's artwork along with the vision statement and survey results and then showed them to an artist [Amanda Zook] who is pretty good at conceptualizing random constructs,” Zook said.

Michaelanne Helms, a mosaic artist who helped with past installations and consulted on this year’s project, explained that mosaic designs are put on one-inch scaled paper with a grid. Then, artists put a chalk grid line on the wall, sketch design elements and add labels to mark texture and colors.

Helms explained that she learned how to work with mosaics from Isaiah Zagar – the artist behind Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens – and shared her techniques with Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts. Helms was also responsible for providing the first truckload of tiles from Philadelphia for the project, Zook said.

Artists break the tiles with a hammer and then use tile nippers to get them to the proper shape. Finally, the artists place the tile pieces on the wall using a tile adhesive, Zook said.

“So your color is determined ultimately by the colors of the tiles and how you mix them,” she said. “You can't just blend to get your shadows, so you really need to have multiple different colors of tile.” 

Four local high school students started working on this year’s installation on July 18.

Sharon Zook gives instruction on mural installation at the Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts Building on July 18

“It is so cool that you can take a tile, break it with a hammer and put it together in a new way to make art,” said Ren Flores, a Lebanon High School Junior who is helping for the third year. 

Artists do sections referred to as “key pieces” in advance on a mesh and then place them on the wall, Zook said. Key pieces in this year’s project included a basket and the circles of the mandala.

Once all the tiles are on the wall, volunteers put grout – a mixture of concrete and sand – onto the tiles then gently wipe it away using sponges, which helps hold the tiles in place, Zook said. She added that they can tint the grout with paint to achieve a specific finishing color choice.

Zook and her team started working on the project on July 18 and finished the final grouting stage on Aug. 25.

Previous mosaics took about a week to install, and the process included getting local children involved to teach them how mosaics are created and have them help installing the actual mosaic, Zook explained.

This year's design process started earlier than previous years because it incorporated elements of a previous artist's work. Zook had to get approval from the current City of Lebanon Street Mural Application, which can take up to 30 days. Zook filed her application July 8, but said she had to resubmit the application again with more information on July 10.

“Normally we just gave them the dates as to when this was going to happen and sent the design concept over the weekend before it was going to be done,” Zook said. “We don't usually have the luxury of time for these kinds of things or the pressure of this where it has to go through a whole committee before you know if it's going to be allowed or permitted.”

Janelle Mendoff, Lebanon’s Community and Economic Development Administrator, sent Zook an email on July 10 saying the design review board has 30 days to review the completed application, Zook said.

Lebanon Mayor Sherri Capello, however, said Zook was informed on July 28 that city officials needed more information before the board could make a recommendation.

Zook said city officials notified her on July 18 – the day she and the high school students started work on the mosaic – that work to install the installation had to stop. The board then sent Zook a series of follow-up questions on July 28, and she sent responses on July 29th. Capello said the city considered the application complete once Zook answered those questions, putting the approval process within the 30-day limit listed on the application.

“There were several board members on vacation and thus, it ended up taking 17 days from the time the information requested was received,” Capello said.

City officials gave Zook final approval to complete the installation on Aug. 18.

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