Last week, YES! Weekly staff writer Keith T. Barber sat down with local artist Ian Byers to discuss his creation of a pebble mosaic depicting a red headed goddess holding a moon in the palm of her hands outside the Silver Moon Saloon in the heart of Winston-Salem's Arts District. Here is a transcript of the interview:
YES! Weekly: Describe the creative process of creating “Celeste," the pebble mosaic built into the patio area at Silver Moon Saloon on Trade Street in Winston-Salem.
Ian Byers: "While I was building it, it was on a Friday night. The bars open at 4 o’clock; I ended up being there until 11:45. While I was building it, my sister [Marissa] came by and she saw the cleavage for example and thought I should add a couple stones here to make it more round in that sense, so I went with it. And she put a beauty mark on her face.
"My buddy, Will, came and with the moon in her hand, he said, 'You should do a flame that comes up in her hand,' and I’m like, ‘That’s a great idea,’ so I built it with the flame coming up. I had a couple of guys set a pebble here and there that were watching so the experience itself and the mosaic itself incorporated the ideas and hands of others. In the overall creation, it was a collective work.
YES! Weekly: Who first approached about creating the mosaic?
Ian Byers: “[Brian Cole, owner of Silver Moon Saloon] wanted a patio and he knew that I did mosaic work and artistic work, so I just thought I would build him a patio and brainstorm ideas of what I would do. Originally, I thought I might do something to do with Silver Moon. I thought I might do something like starry night, makes stars and a moon. I ended up deciding to do a lady. The first inspiration came from an alchemy tarot card. It was called the Silver Lady. It occurred to me a wanted to do a goddess that represented a strong woman in the sense of compassion and love. I kind of took the silver lady as inspiration and thought I would do my own goddess. I had my assortment of pebbles. I wanted the moon to be incorporated into it so her cleavage shot are half moons and she’s holding a moon that’s on fire.
"Some people might think she’s a mermaid but she actually has toes if you look at the bottom of her dress. It was the first human figure work I’ve done, so it was a challenge for me but to kind of praise beauty of woman was my goal here. We decided to name her 'Celeste.'
"I wrote a haiku about Celeste: 'Her dance in moonlight; surrendering to the night; silver majestic.'"
"John Long, he and I, built everything but the mosaic. We cut the mosaic in about four days of work — building this wall, doing the brick pavers, the stone, tamping it. I plowed into the mosaic itself on Friday [April 15] and I worked here doing mosaic itself, it was about 10 straight hours. I started at noon and finished up at 11:45 at night, came back the next day and spent an hour finishing up. It was 10 hours of laying pebbles.
YES! Weekly: What other public art installations have you created?
Ian Byers: I've done mosaics at the Arts Based Elementary School, Centenary Methodist Church, the Central YMCA, the Children’s Museum, and Augsburg Lutheran Church.
YES! Weekly: How do you stay focused for 10 hours?
Ian Byers: "I completely zone into it; I enjoy it but it hurts being in a crouched position for that long. I usually don’t spend 10 hours on one piece; but this one, I was so driven to get it done. The rain was coming; I kinda had no choice. I feel like a caught a sixth wind. I’m crouching the whole time; it’s hard on the knees. What gets me through it is I just like doing it and knowing that when it’s a complete work, I can stand back and see it and it’s there.”
“I enjoy the experience, I enjoy seeing it; it’s just gratifying.”
YES! Weekly: The mosaic has an asymmetrical design. Was that intentional?
Ian Byers: “Especially the Japanese style gardening we do, everything is about asymmetry. It’s all of a balance, you don’t split everything down the middle and just mirror it with each other. You add different plants and different size rocks; you balance it all out by it’s asymmetrical."
YES! Weekly: I understand you grew up in a creative household. Your father, Patrick, was a composer and a musician. How did growing up in a creative environment impact you personally?
Ian Byers: "From a young age, we weren’t ever allowed to sit in front and waste away at the TV. We were active in projects, in drawing. We did performing and music was always kind of a center point in the house. Really, the first 11 years of my life, it was all the arts in whatever shape or form they may take. Our house was just very creative. We learned from our brothers and sisters; it was just the air of our house.”
"This is my most refined [creative outlet]. This is what I put my time into; with music, I enjoy it and I play it, but with the mosaic work I do, I just have the most invested in it which has been allowed through working with John [Newman] and him encouraging me, allowing that to bloom and to grow. I’ve put tons and tons and tons of hours into this skill. It is my outlet; mosaics are not common here in Winston."
“I feel like a pioneer in bringing [pebble mosaics] to the city. I encourage everyone to learn about it and do it themselves. It’s a fairly simple equation to build one."
YES! Weekly: It seems children gravitate to your mosaics. Why is that?
Ian Byers: “I just think they’re wonderful. They’re fun to look at and children love them. They really bring children into a garden setting; they’re fun."
YES! Weekly: How do pebble mosaics fit into your work with John Newman?
Ian Byers: “This is its own thing. I don’t know if you would call this mosaic Japanese. From what I know of a Japanese garden, they’re basically trying to emulate the feeling of when you go to a mountaintop and you see the rocks and you see a pine growing or you’re standing by a stream and you see the rocks and the water rolling off of it. It invokes this feeling of nature; basically, we try to mimic that in someone’s yard just invoking that feeling of nature.”
"Our inspiration comes from Pilot Mountain, Hanging Rock, the Yadkin River — studying those plants there, seeing the waterfalls. We use that as our inspiration with what we bring to the local gardens here. In a Japanese garden, they add to the quality of life. When you walk into your garden, it’s meant to make you pause, and look and reflect and see the rocks, the plants, see where things are place. It brings you to pause and reflection. In Japanese culture, you would pause and reflect and it would prepare you to have tea."
“In building our gardens, we feel, the gratification is, we’re adding to the quality of people’s lives. The quality of life we have being able to do that is extraordinary.”
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