RHS Harlow Carr in Harrogate hosts cutting edge art show with BAMM North mosaic exhibition 2023

What is a group of mosaic makers called? A crack team, perhaps, or a cutting crew? Or maybe a mischief because, like magpies, they tend to be attracted to shiny bits of stuff that they might be able to put to good use.

For Yorkshire mosaic artist and teacher Frances Taylor, the fascination began when she found a box of glistening tiny tiles at an art shop on the Shambles in York.

“Then I went to Italy to visit a friend,” she says. “We went to Ravenna, a town filled with these incredible sixth-century Byzantine mosaics - gold, glittering, brightly coloured mosaics, and churches with every inside surface covered, and I thought, oh, they are lovely. I didn’t think I could recreate them, but they made me feel inspired.”

Working from her Mosaic Mania studio in Otley, Frances has designed and made mosaics for public and private spaces across the UK and Europe, for parks, gardens and swimming pools, for schools and community venues, providing impressive, beautiful talking points that decorate and commemorate. She makes small mosaics, too, from hanging pendants to house numbers, and hosts workshops teaching individuals and groups how to make them for themselves.

She has been making mosaics for 25 years, at first part-time, when she was a human rights criminal defence lawyer in Chapeltown in Leeds, then becoming a full-time professional mosaic artist 10 years ago.

Frances is self-taught, as is fellow mosaic artist Flick Gillett, of MoonChild Mosaics who lives in Cross Hills, near Keighley. Flick used to make jewellery out of buttons but changed tack after seeing modern mosaic art - using buttons - at an Art in the Pen exhibition in Skipton. “It was the first time I had ever seen a mosaic that wasn’t on a Roman bath or something like that. It was an absolute revelation,” she says.

Flick works three days a week as an administrator at the University of Leeds but admits she has become obsessed with mosaicing, although she manages to contain the considerable amount of materials and tools required within the basement of her Victorian house, where she has a studio.

“I am inspired by wildlife and by the natural world,” she says of her mosaics. “They are generally quite figurative, but a little bit quirky. I use a lot of plates in them, so there is pottery with flowers that might go into a fish or a fox.”

Using pottery is a technique called picassiette and Flick has started teaching it at Frances’s studio. She finds her china and pots in charity shops, on eBay, and at carboot sales. “It’s become a lot more expensive,” she says. “Friends give me bits and pieces. A lot of people think that I do it by smashing it up. But I cut. I spend ages painstakingly cutting up flowers and leaves and trying to use the pattern that is on the pottery.” She uses a grinder to smooth down jagged corners. Ironically, she has never used a single button in any of her mosaics.

Frances and Flick are currently showcasing their work at the British Association for Modern Mosaic North (BAMM North) Coast and Country exhibition at the Old Bath House at RHS Harlow Carr in Harrogate, joining more than 20 other mosaic artists, most from Yorkshire. All the pieces are on sale, and range from small indoor wall hangings and coasters to wall art, large garden mosaics and tiled tables. BAMM was founded in 1999 to promote, encourage and support excellence in contemporary mosaic art and raise public awareness of modern mosaic art through exhibitions, publications, events and educational activities. It has more than 200 members.

Flick hopes that visitors who pop in to see the artists and their works at Harlow Carr will be as amazed as she was when she first discovered modern mosaics. “They can expect a massive variety,” she says. “I think they will be surprised at what people can do with one subject, and how many interpretations you get, how many different media they use, how many different styles.

Her prices range from £20 for a bee mosaic to £650 for a table. “People's styles are very individual. I think it’s quite hard to say what your own style is but when you see something by someone else, you can usually tell.”

Her current favourite mosaic is one she made of a fox. “I love the mixture of all the plates that were used to make the hedgerow and all the glass that was used to make the fox and the backdrop,” she says.

Frances’s current favourite is of her dog, Cally. Her prices for pieces seen here range from £10 for a small slate heart to £1,850 for the Tree of Life. She says: “Sitting making, you go to another place in your head. You use a really nice part of your brain and you can think about all sorts of other things while you are doing it. I can always remember exactly what was on the radio when I made that bit.”

When she started making mosaics, tiles were hard to come. It is now much easier to buy a huge variety on the internet - The Crafty Glass Box and Hobby Island are recommended by both Frances and Flick.

Some of Frances’s larger mosaic pieces are well known across Yorkshire, especially in Otley town centre, where they include a mosaic armchair (near North Bar and The Woolpack Music Studios) and mosaic paving at Titty Bottle Park (she has an exhibition coming up at the Courthouse in Otley in May). She has mosaiced two pianos, an upright for Leeds International Piano Competition and a grand piano for Besbrode Pianos (they can be seen on her website). Her many community projects include working with learning disabled adults, with refugees and the homeless, where it can give staff and clients a useful, friendly and informal way of exchanging information and advice. She has also worked with elderly residents at care homes, with environmental and allotment groups and at several Yorkshire schools, where the children are able to contribute to the making of a large outdoor piece of mosaic art, perhaps to commemorate an event or an anniversary, from deciding what they want to see depicted to watching the final work installed as a permanent testament to their creativity.

“There is ownership,” she says. “I say to eight-year-olds, when you are really old, like 27, you could bring your children to the school and they could see this mosaic.”

A mosaic, says Flick, can become “part of the fabric of your home or garden”. Her works have featured in a number of exhibitions (there is currently one at Osborne's cafe-restaurant in York) and she recently sold a range of smaller works, including birds designs made with pottery, at the Blue Teapot cafe in Mytholmroyd, and found they were immensely popular.

“Mosaics is one of those things that spans arts and crafts. It gives people confidence and they go away thinking, I can do this, I am artistic,” she says.

Frances agrees: “You almost can’t go wrong with mosaicing. For the people who come to my courses for the first time, if you like colour and shiny things, and you like robins or blackbirds or whatever it might be, you can make something quite beautiful in a few hours.

“It’s absorbing but it is possible to chat. For some people, it’s a nice social occasion, and to make friends. As someone said to me once, people don’t just come here to make mosaics.”

*The BAMM North Coast and Country exhibition and pop-up shop is at the Old Bath House at RHS Harlow Carr until April 16, 2023. Entry included in membership or normal garden admission fee, see www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/harlow-carr

*Frances Taylor is at www.mosaicmania.co.uk and Flick Gillett is at MoonChild Mosaics at www.mosaicsbybammnorth.co.uk.