Mosaic Artist
Catch Gregory Sipp at the 2018 Royal Oak Market: Art Fair Edition. Don’t miss this opportunity to see Gregory Sipps world wide release of his Aretha Franklin Mosaic.
Event Dates/Hours: Thursday, November 15, 2018, from 12:00 noon – 10 pm – Friday, November 16, 2018, from 12:00 noon – 10 pm
Royal Oak Farmers Market
316 E 11 Mile Rd, Royal Oak, Michigan 48067
Don’t miss your opportunity to be part of Gregory Sipp release of his Nancy Wilson Mosaic.
Gregory will be showing this one of a kind Mosaic along with his other mosaics at Art Birmingham. May 12th and 13th, 2018.
Visit Greg at Booth #056
Click here for more info on how to find Grgory Sipp at Art Birmingham.
This year Art Birmingham celebrates its 37th annual return to Shain Park, downtown Birmingham’s beautiful City Park. This exquisite fine art fair will showcase more than 150 juried artists in an elegant and extraordinary setting and is an annual Mother’s Day tradition. Featured work includes painting, ceramics, photography, jewelry, glass, wood, sculpture, mixed media, fiber, metal and more.
Shain Park is conveniently located in the center of this favorite urban downtown and features all new and welcoming pathways and beautiful landscaping. As the downtown center, the park is surrounded by convenient parking for fair goers and within easy access to the many unique stores and fabulous restaurants of downtown Birmingham. Admission is free.
I had the good fortune of having Sascha Feinstein contact me on my website. Sascha is a professor at Lycoming College in Penn.
He also is a well known poet, essayist, and editor.
Sascha founded Brilliant Corners : A Journal of Jazz and Literature in 1996.
Brilliant Corners, the only national journal to focus on jazz-related literature.
The journal is an international publication. Sascha told me he had seen my work online and he wanted to feature one of my mosaics on the cover of his journal in the May Edition. Of course, I was thrilled, his journal is dedicated to literature and jazz that feature the music I love.
He chose the Charles Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie mosaic to feature in the journal.( please see image) He also included Notes about the Cover Art which stated information about me and how I made mosaic. Again I would like to thank Sascha Feinstein for including me in his journal.
A Note on the Cover Art
Gregory Sipp
I have been a jazz enthusiast for over 50 years. I especially like the
straight-ahead, bebop jazz from the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s. Many of my mosaics are of individuals from these periods, including Miles Davis,
John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan,
and, most recently, Thelonious Monk.
For the portrait of Dizzy Gillespie, I sketched an outline of the trumpet master. on a painted wooden board. The actual mosaic process began
at that point. Generally speaking, my color choices are based on finding
colors that complement one another but that aren’t typically used in portraits.
For example, I chose a green stained-glass mix for his skin tone. For his hair and finger nails, I chose a purple, blue, and white mix.
When you are working with stained glass, you have to find glass that has the right color, as well as color patterns and the right value. I always listen to my muse when choosing colors, and, like any serious mosaic artist, make sure that I have a huge range of glass available.
This particular mosaic was challenging because I was trying to make
the horn and his hands look dimensional. All of my portraits require over
35 hours of work, but the Dizzy mosaic took over 70 because of its complexity.
As usual, each piece of glass had to be shaped and ground on a grinder, and then fit in place. You then glue the shaped pieces to the board. To give you an idea of the time commitment involved: the top of the horn alone took over 6 hours to complete.
Jazz for me has been the rhythm of my life. The music invigorates me.
The flow of the music, the creativity, the improvisation, and the various
techniques that musicians use inspire me. There is a message that I feel
jazz imparts: Share what you’ve learned; embrace diversity and courage,
and understand others so they, too, can speak.
The style and color choices I use in my mosaics reflect what I feel
when I am listening to the music. My passion for mosaics has grown every
year. I have found my artistic instrument.
I had a great time at the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival. Besides the fact that I sold my Thelonious Monk mosaic and numerous prints of my mosaics. The festival was held at the Hilton Garden Hotel in Rockville, MD.
The hotel was very welcoming. And the settings for both the jazz high school competitions and the jazz headliners were outstanding.
With the great mixture of the enthusiastic high schoolers, the professionalism of the veteran jazz musicians, and the great jazz audience made this festival outstanding.
The jazz tradition is very strong on the east coast.
Join Gregory Sipp at the Mid – Atlantic Jazz Festival in Rockville, Maryland February 16-18 2018 for the release of his Thelonious Monk Mosaic along with his other mosaics.
The Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival (MAFJ) is presented in the true spirit and intent of the former East Coast Jazz Festival (ECJF). Founded in 1992 by vocalist/vocal educator Ronnie Wells, for the next 15 years the ECJF was produced by and benefited The Fish Middleton Jazz Scholarship Fund, Inc.
(FMJS). ECJF was originally created in honor of Elmore “Fish” Middleton, a Washington, DC jazz radio programmer, whose commitment to promoting jazz music and supporting emerging jazz artists became the guiding principle behind the festival.
Produced by the Jazz Academy of Music, which hosts a burgeoning annual jazz camp for aspiring high school jazz musicians, the MAJF makes an indelible commitment to jazz education.
The Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival will build upon the legacy of ECJF in presenting the region’s finest talents and visiting masters in unique “festival” programs and configurations, Next Generation jazz artists, and student ensembles.
Click here to purchase Gregory Sipp’s Thelonious Monk Mosaic
