The ability to live in a work of art.

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Most of us are happy to live in our nice four square four walls and add a bit of tidy decoration. We don’t want to go over the top (we are British after all) so a bit of subtly does us fine. For others though they want more. There are some who want to live surrounded by, some would say too much, colour. They would rather live in a piece of art and the Mosaic Tile house in Venice Beach California is one such place. Whereas we might see a set of Column radiators like the ones at LINK, as being a bit fancy, and they do add some difference to the home, the use of colourful glass mosaics might be way too far.  Let’s sit back and take an objective look at this incredible home and what motivates someone to live in it.

The appearance of the house is like something that Klimt would paint.  Klimt was a symbolist big on murals and three dimensional works of art. His most famous work “The Kiss” is a patchwork oil on canvas that uses a mosaic style to convey the characters. They would effortlessly blur into the Mosaic House in Venice Beach as the home uses pretty much exactly the same technique. This is not the tightly controlled pattern of the Roman and Greek floor mosaic this is the crazy paving approach. The pieces of the mosaic are simply applied to the wall.

To use the word “simply” is a bit unfair though. There is a purpose to the house as are the many other multi coloured dwellings in the area and that is to illustrate the rainbow of cultures and people that have come to settle in the area which has always been a centre of free expression and independent life choices since the late 50;s onwards. It is the home of the artist and the artisan.

The home is the work of Cheri Pann and her husband Gonzalo. It started out as a passing fancy that turned into a nineteen year project and it’s still not completed to this day as Cheri will tell you on the tour of their home. The interesting thing is that the Mosaic walls are not only on the outside but on the inside as well. Another interesting factor is that they are purpose made tiles by Cheri not just salvaged off cuts. Gonzalo breaks them up and begins the process of taking what was a pretty much run of the mill house and make it something  incredible.

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