Crafters Anonymous: Ogden woman transforms colored glass into majestic mosaics
OGDEN — A bowl filled with small pieces of glass in a variety of shapes and colors sits on Pilar Fielding’s desk, where she creates mosaic art.
Sitting on the desk are a framed mirror and a vase she’s working on. Many of her mosaic pieces also hang on walls throughout her 100-year-old Ogden home.
Fielding, who is originally from Phoenix, Arizona, said she has always loved mosaic glass art. However, she didn’t get into creating her own designs until seven years ago, when her daughter gave her a bear made out of glass tiles.
BRIANA SCROGGINS/Standard-Examiner
Pilar Fielding designs mosaics, as well as charms, that she sells at the farmers market in Ogden.
“I looked at it, and the light hit me, and I thought, ‘I could do this,'” Fielding said.
Fielding, who owns Majickal Mosaics, said she taught herself how to make the mosaics she sells from her home, on Facebook and at Ogden’s Farmers Market.
Fielding said the reason she loves glass is because of the colors and how the light shines through and on it. Colors fascinate her, particularly amber and green.
When creating a piece, Fielding will look at the surface she wants to work with and start picking out pieces of glass from the bowl on her desk. She has even more glass in her cupboards — large sheets of it, as well as smaller chunks stored in boxes and bowls.
BRIANA SCROGGINS/Standard-Examiner
One of Pilar Fielding’s mirror mosaics is displayed at her home Thursday, July 28, 2016, in Ogden.
If the glass is the right color but too big, Fielding will cut it with “nippers that cut this glass like butter,” she said as she demonstrated. If the piece of glass has a rough edge she doesn’t like, she’ll fire up her grinder and smooth it out.
Sometimes Fielding glues on the glass as she goes, eyeballing the pattern. Other times she places the pieces on the surface before gluing them down. She doesn’t ever want two pieces of the same color too close to one another.
After all the pieces are glued down, Fielding uses either black or gray grout to tie the pieces together.
“Grouting can take as long as the gluing down of the glass pieces,” her husband, Stan Tucker, said. “Pilar is very meticulous. If it isn’t right, she’ll dig out the pieces, including the grout, to make it the way she wants it.”
After grouting, Fielding spends time cleaning each piece of glass so it shines.
BRIANA SCROGGINS/Standard-Examiner
Pilar Fielding shows off a glass cutter she uses for mosaics Thursday, July 28, 2016, at her home in Ogden.
Since getting into mosaic art, Fielding said it’s hard to look at any surface and not see a potential work of art.
One of the most difficult surfaces Fielding has worked on is the vase sitting on her desk, which she says is a work in progress. Getting the glass to stay on curved surfaces is troublesome, Fielding said.
However, she once covered a pair of wooden Dutch shoes will glass mosaic and said it was a rewarding project. They were a gift for her mother, who lives in Spain.
The most difficult part of the entire mosaic-making process comes when she’s finished, Fielding said. More than once she’s gotten attached to a project and chosen to keep it instead of selling it.
“There’s a part of me in it,” Fielding said. “I’ve put so much time and my energy into it, it is part of me.”
You can reach reporter Loretta Park at lpark@standard.net or at 801-625-4252. Follow her on Twitter@LorettaPark SE or like her on Facebook.