Eli Whitney Museum

Mosaic is the art of creating images with pieces of glass, stone, or pottery. It is a technique used by most ancient civilizations from the Romans and Greeks to the early Byzantine Empire.

Explore this exciting art form and learn the same techniques practiced thousands of years ago. Using glass, ceramic tile, pottery, stone, and found objects, you will create your own wall panel or small tabletop mosaic that you design. Once these mosaic techniques have been mastered, you will move on to create a substrate for a mosaic mask similar to those designed by the Aztecs in the 14 th Century.

In the Aztec culture, these masks were used in religious ceremonies to symbolize the gods, or placed on mummified heads as protection from dangers in the afterlife. You will create your own personal Aztec mask using a mold and thinset cement and then, once dry, cover the mask in a mosaic of pottery, stone and glass. The completed mosaic mask will be suitable to hang inside or outside, a tribute to your own personal god or to ward off evil spirits.

For those who took Week 7, additional challenges will be possible.