Fiddling While Rome Burns

The mosaics in Julie Sperling’s “Fiddling while Rome burns” series each tackle a different trend or concept, from rising temperatures to changing precipitation trends to the difference between weather and climate. Her artistic statement has the flair to persuade literal as well as global warnings to the heaps, improving an individual’s sense of commitment in the communal sense. The artist has been recently engaged in an ongoing series about climate change, titled Fiddling While Rome Burns. Her mosaics tackle specific climate-correlated concepts, impact or solution. Her concepts usually embark upon scientific, literary and political matters. There’s a different apparition for each of her mosaic patterns. Hence, she conveys her ideas and messages using a huge variety of mediums, each one carefully selected to create unique and theoretical patterns. While she does her best in her personal life, at work she often feels like her hands are tied. Such is the reality of being a small gear in the greater engine of federal bureaucracy.

As reported by Sperling, mosaic is a powerful medium to converse climate change, not only because of its germaneness, but also the manifested analogous between the art form and global climate change. Both require a lot of endurance through the gradual processes, but each one depends on the power of the cluster. Pieces of stones and glass come together to create images with an assemblage of pieces, accordingly our actions add up and make a difference in the fight against climate change.

Breaking The Hand That Feeds Us

Simple Chemistry: Ocean acidification is bad news

Her mosaics are a philosophy of piecing together single entities, to create a whole. Not far from the characterization of mosaic patterns. According to Sperling, whenever we think of climate change, it’s exceedingly expected to focus on what happens in the atmosphere or celestial dome. Nevertheless climate has an evil twin known as ocean acidification. How Does Water Get In and Out of the Atmosphere? Well this is a simple yet, pending question. As everyone knows, that only a tiny fraction of Earth’s water is in the atmosphere at a time. Hence when we burn things like coal and other fossil fuels, greenhouse gases like CO₂ are released into the atmosphere. Sadly, what most of us often ignore is the fact that a score of CO₂ also gets absorbed by the oceans. Thus, creates carbonic acid, making the oceans more acidic. What happens when the oceans get more acidic? This mosaic is inspired by the feelings and impacts of consequences.

This piece is handcrafted using smalti, shells, mudstone, marble, ceramic, limestone and chalk.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

Celebrating the scientific consensus on climate change

Scientists have tremendously agreed that climate change is happening and that it is caused by humans. The title of this mosaic comes from Sperling ‘s high school memories. QED is what we put at the end of a mathematical proof to indicate completion. This title gave the piece a certain gravity / formality, appropriately given, and it is one of the most fundamental concepts in Fiddling While Rome Burns series.

This pattern is handcrafted using Limestone, Eramosa marble, sandstone, coal, cement parging, salvaged tile, Italian smalti, vintage 24-karat smalti, concretions and metal.

Fossil Of The Day

From Leader to Lagar

This mosaic pattern reveals a miscellany of mediums, each of these natural stones is cautiously picked, transmitting a particular initiative from leader to lagar. According to the artist the title of this mosaic has always been in her mind, so “From leader to laggard” remains, as a reminder of what has happened to her country and its standing on the world stage, challenging the new Liberal government to step up and make good on its promises.

This Candian mosaic artist has spontaneously tackled different trends and concepts as a geographer and environmentalist,visualizing mosaic patterns not as an entity but as a course of action necessitates knowledge in both ambiance and conceptual art.

She has perfectly transformed and allied mosaic patterns to patterns of climates, landforms, vegetation, soils, and water.

This piece is handcrafted using fossils, shale, slate, limestone, eramosa marble, sandstone, brick and terracotta.

Copyright © Julie Sperling, 2016. All rights reserved.

Artist Portfolio: sperlingmosaics.com

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