IN Gary Drostle’s Thamesmead studio, I’m drooling over a sweet-shop array of smalti—the opaque glass nuggets that are the jewels of the mosaicist’s art. These lustrous pieces (smalto means enamel) are still produced mostly by Italians, principally in Venice and Murano, where they were imported from Constantinople in the 12th century. Made by hand to secretly guarded recipes, they involve melding glass in a furnace with pigments from metal oxides. The molten material is poured into slabs, annealed and then broken into irregular pieces, which are prized for their natural imperfections and variations of rich colour.
Most famously associated with the glorious era of Byzantine mosaics, smalti have traditionally been mixed with less costly materials—ceramic, stone, marble, porcelain—all of which are still used, together with machine-manufactured vitreous tiles. Other natural and recycled materials, from slate and mirror glass to plastic and found objects, are also incorporated into modern mosaics, achieving a range of stylistic and textural effects.
Mr Drostle’s first experience with the medium was in 1990, when, having studied at Camberwell, and taught myself.’ It paid off and he’s since won many prizes and international commissions.
