John T Unger Artist's Portfolio

Mosaic Sign Commissioned By Alden State Bank

Alden State Bank Sign, 2005 Vitreous glass mosaic over Durock in powder coated steel frame 48" H x 96" W x 6" D Commission
This project was commissioned by Alden State Bank for their corporate headquarters in Alden, MI. The sign took several months to complete, even with the help of my daughter Mya. All the tile was cut by hand. From across the street, the trout looks almost photoreal, which was really the look I was going for. The tile is iridescent glass from the Sicis line, so when the light hits it, it makes the trout look even more realistic. The last thumbnail image below shows a detail of how the iridized tiles look when catching the light. Click here to view more glass mosaic in the portfolio.
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Tags: art, fish, glass mosaic, mosaic, trout, sculpture

Mosaic Bear for the American Red Cross

Free Spirit, Mosaic Bear 2005 Ceramic tile over fiberglass. Exact dimensions unknown: Your basic life-size bear Private Collection

Free Spirit was created for the 2005 fundraiser Great Northern Hunt for Bearable Art organized by The American Red Cross of Northern Lower Michigan. An anonymous donor sponsored one of the bears and specifically requested that I mosaic it. I couldn't get anyone to spill the beans as to  this mystery benefactor's identity, but I'd like to thank them here for picking up the tab on my entry to the outdoor art project.  The life-size fiberglass bears are based on a sculpture by Glen McCune commissioned by the Red Cross as a follow-up to their 2003 Fish-In, which featured over 50 outdoor fish sculptures and raised more than $300,000 for local Red Cross services. If you're curious how long it takes to cover such a large sculpture in tile, you can follow along with the more or less daily blog posts I posted while working on the project: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five, Day Six, Day Seven, Day Nine + Ten, Day Eleven + Twelve, The Auction! As shown below, my bear was chosen to greet everyone as they first came in to the auction tent.

 

Tags: art, mosaic, fish, whale, glass mosaic, tropical fish, fishing

La Siren II: A Mosaic Mermaid Sculpture in Bottle Caps and Glass

La Siren, 2000 Vitreous glass, bottle caps, stone, copper, glass eyes, Hardibacker substrate 60" H x 36" W x 1.5" D Private Collection
Christy MacLear commissioned this piece for her gallery, Fleur Fine Art, because people kept asking her to sell the mermaid from her private collection and she couldn't bring herself to part with it. She gave me "total artistic freedom" to create any bottle cap mermaid I wanted to and I took that ball and ran with it. You gotta love the bottle cap dreads! Unfortunately, these are  the best photos I have at present. I chose the detail image as the primary photo because the full photo is at a weird angle. I was inspired to do bottle cap mosaics by Haitian ritual flags, in which detailed images are realized entirely through the use of sequins. Each cap is sorted by brand or color, washed, dried, punched, partially crimped and finally nailed in overlapping scales to create a feeling of depth, light and shadow. Decorative nail heads emulate the texture of seed beads often used to reinforce the sequins. My bottle cap mosaics revisit the playful, funky spirit of my early found object collages. Combining the caps with Italian glass mosaic carries elements of folk art and recycling into a modern fine art context. I also did a cut metal collage this year working from the same mermaid image used for this piece. Take a look at it here. click thumbnail to view larger image.

 

Tags: art, mosaic, folkart, sculpture, bottlecap, loteria, mermaid, self taught, Mexican art, bottle cap,

Abstract Slate Wall Mural

Abstract Slate Wall Mural, 2002 Chinese slate. 126" H x 90" W Commission
This project was a bit of a challenge…create a visually pleasing abstract pattern working within a 5 x 7 grid. The goal was to create a surface which added warmth, colors, and pattern without overwhelming the room. Almost a formalist riddle… but one with nice results! The room has been repainted since  these photos were taken. I'll have to update the pics when I get a chance.
View from left of stove.	View from right of stove.
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Tags: Art, mosaic, slate, abstract, decor

Four Marble Mosaics Commissioned by Northeastern University, Boston

The Toftevaag, Marble Mosaic, 2002 Marble  mosaic, steel frame. 33" H x 25.5" W x 1.25" D Collection: Northeastern University, Boston
The above mosaic portrays the Toftevaag, a century-old Norwegian fishing boat re-outfitted as a research vessel, sailing off the coast of the Rock of Gibraltar. One of four mosaics commissioned by Eson Chan, Art Director at Northeastern University Magazine, to illustrate an article about dolphin watching off the coast of Spain. Days of the Dolphin, by Gary Goshgarian ran in the November Issue, 2002. Although created expressly for publication, the mosaics remain in the university's permanent collection. The mosaics below show typical coastal houses off the coast of Greece, a close-up of a dolphin and dolphins at play in the Alboran Sea..
Coastal Spain, 2002: Marble Mosaic 18" x 18" x 1.25"	Dolphin, 2002: Marble Mosaic 18" x 18" x 1.25"	Dolphins at Play, 2002: Marble Mosaic 18" x 18" x 1.25"
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Tags: Art, mosaic, dolphin watching, dolphins, marble, Greece

Anatomy Chart Marble Mosaic

Human Anatomy Marble Mosaic, 2005 Marble  mosaic, copper. 36" H x 24" W x 1.5" D Collection: Thera-Massage, Evanston, IL
When Tommy Jenkins opened his own massage therapy clinic,  he  wanted a stellar piece of art to dress up the waiting room. Originally he was interested in a steel wall sculpture depicting musculature. A day or two later, it occured to me that some of the anatomical illustrations I've seen would look absolutely stunning done in marble mosaic— red marble with white veining is exactly the same color as human musculature. I suggested the idea to him and we ran with it. The mosaic is based on an anatomical drawing by Bartolomeo Eustachi, Italian anatomist, born ca. 1500-1513, San Severino, Ancona; died August 27, 1574. There are links to the original art, as well as a whole library of antiquarian anatomy drawings on my previous post about this project. Check out detail image of the hand below.   The tendons came out really well.
Human Anatomy Marble Mosaic, detail 2005: Marble Mosaic, copper	Source art: Bartolomeo Eustachi
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Tags: Art, mosaic, Human Anatomy, anatomy, marble, medical image, musculature, muscle

Community Harmony Through Song & Play, Panel 1: Music

Community Harmony Through Song & Play, Panel 1: Music, 2001 Ceramic mosaic on wood substrate. 66" H x 48" W x 2" D Public Art Commission

Panel 1 portrays musical styles which have been cornerstones of the African American culture and experience. The sax man probably plays jazz or blues. The banjo player picks out a country blues or maybe a dance tune. The woman may be singing gospel, though the song could as easily be Motown, blues, or a traditional field holler. The blending of these musics shows how each has grown from the songs before it and also that working together is required to make the music sweet, that respecting heritage gives it depth, that inventiveness and improvisation give it the edge to move on into tomorrow and discover an even better world. One of three mosaics created for Manly Career Academy High School in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood. Assisted by Caswell James and advised by veteran muralist Nina Smoot-Cain, I worked with a team of nine community youths to design and produce three mosaic panels totaling 66 sqare feet. Commission sponsored by Chicago Public Art Group with support from Gallery 37 and the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development. To read a detailed account of the project, click here.

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Tags: art, chicago, jazz, music, gospel, blues, mosaic, public art

Community Harmony Through Song & Play, Panel 2: Arts and History

Community Harmony Through Song & Play, Panel 2: Arts and History, 2001 Ceramic mosaic on wood substrate. 66" H x 48" W x 2" D Public Art Commission

An African horn player blows his horn from the deep past, communicating with the sax man in the first panel. Behind him a mask hangs like the sun in the sky. The abstract pattern was inspired by African textiles and African American quilts. This mosaic asserts that tradition can be a lively living thing, that introspection and intuition can lead to innovation without bulldozing the inspirations we may discover in our history. One of three mosaics created for Manly Career Academy High School in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood. Assisted by Caswell James and advised by veteran muralist Nina Smoot-Cain, I worked with a team of nine community youths to design and produce three mosaic panels totaling 66 sqare feet. Commission sponsored by Chicago Public Art Group with support from Gallery 37 and the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development. To read a detailed account of the project, click here.

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Tags: art, chicago, mosaic, public art

Community Harmony Through Song & Play, Panel 3: Peace in the Park

Community Harmony Through Song & Play, Panel 3: Peace in the Park, 2001 Ceramic mosaic on wood substrate. 66" H x 48" W x 2" D Public Art Commission

In the park a band plays, a man and woman dance, a child jumps to catch the notes in the air. Creative spirits float above a pond, embracing. A man sells balloons and children get sno-cones from a pushcart vendor, a common sight in North Lawndale. The park is clean and people are enjoying their neighborhood, free to play and relax. life is good because mutual respect and effort have created a safe and joyful environment. One of three mosaics created for Manly Career Academy High School in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood. Assisted by Caswell James and advised by veteran muralist Nina Smoot-Cain, I worked with a team of nine community youths to design and produce three mosaic panels totaling 66 sqare feet. Commission sponsored by Chicago Public Art Group with support from Gallery 37 and the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development. To read a detailed account of the project, click here.

click thumbnail to view larger image.

 

Tags: art, chicago, mosaic, public art

Green River Station Glass Mosaic Panel

Green River Station, 2004 vitreous glass tile, steel frame. 36" H x 36" W x 1.5" D Commission

My neighbor across the street lives in what was once the old train station, sometime around the turn of the century. He commissioned this piece for the exterior of his home. This was actually the most difficult mosaic I've done to date. I worked from an old B+W photo that I converted to color in my head as I worked. Getting the shading right on the train engine with only black, white and two shades of grey was really tough… the engine of course, is painted solid black and the only way to show detail was by getting the highlights right. The other tricky part was really capturing the features of the men's faces at such a small size. The faces are about the size of my thumbnail. I feel I was able to really give them personality and a pretty good likeness to the guys in the photo even though most of the faces are done with under a dozen pieces of glass. That was a major challenge! The smaller a mosaic is, the more difficult it is to get detail. If this had been twice as large, I would probably have been able to do the entire mosaic in less time than it took to do it at this size!

 

Tags: art, folkart, mosaic, train station, history, trains, michigan

Joe Tinker Mosaic Portrait

Joe Tinker Mosaic Portrait, 2004 vitreous glass mosaic, steel frame, copper. 48" H x 30" W x 1.5" D Commission
The Tinker mosaic is the first panel of a triptych commissioned by the Lakeview Baseball Club featuring portraits of Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance. The artwork  the mural is based on was taken from baseball cards I found online at the Library of Congress' Special Collections website. I love the orange sky in the original, but I swapped it out for blue in the first two portraits because I felt it might be a bit confusing.
Detail of mosaic	Source art
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Tags: art, chicago, mosaic, chicago cubs, history, baseball, sports

Frank Chance Mosaic Portrait

Frank Chance Mosaic Portrait, 2005 vitreous glass mosaic, steel frame. 48" H x 30" W x 1.5" D Commission
The Tinker mosaic is the third panel of a triptych commissioned by the Lakeview Baseball Club featuring portraits of Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance. The artwork  the mural is based on was taken from baseball cards I found online at the Library of Congress' Special Collections website. I love the orange sky in the original, but I swapped it out for blue in the first two portraits because I felt it might be a bit confusing.
Detail of mosaic	Source art
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Tags: art, chicago, mosaic, chicago cubs, history, baseball, sports

DisneyQuest Chicago: Mosaic Mural and Sculpture for Cows On Parade

DisneyQuest Chicago: Mosaic Mural and Sculpture, 2005 Plastic rhinestone mosaic. Commission
This was a project I worked on as part of a hired crew at Skyline design. We made an 1,800 square foot mosaic for the face of the DisneyQuest building in Chicago using one inch reflective plastic rhinestones. If I'm counting the windows right, this thing was 13 stories tall… it was definitely huge. While we were at it, they had us make a cow for Chicago's Cows On Parade.
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Tags: Art, public art, art commissions, mosaic, cow, disney, DisneyQuest, mural, corporate art

Wind Vane Commissioned by Cycling Salamander Gallery

Cycling Salamander Windvane, 2004 Steel, bicycle, copper, bronze, aluminum, paint 132" x 105" x 12" Commission
This sculpture was commissioned by  Cycling Salamander Gallery in Charlevoix, Michigan. The bike used in the piece is the one that Rebbecca, the gallery's owner, learned to ride on. The bearing assembly for the rotating axis is so smooth that even a light breeze sets the piece in motion. The hat makes a cool rattling noise when it's spinning, as if to warm you not to bang your head on the big red arrow. You know, in case you didn't see the 8' 9" base spinning towards you… See photos of the Salamander in progress. See photos of the Salamander's official unveiling.
Alternate view	Alternate view	Movie
Me + the Salamander	Detail	Movie
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Tags: art, commission, funky, garden, kinetic art, metal, sculpture, windvane, yard

Fun With Saw Blades: A Couple Custom Jobs

Sign for the Cole Farm, 2006. Recycled steel. 30" x 30" Commission
The sign above was made for a local produce farmer. The "C" is based on lettering from an antique seed catalog that happened to share his family name. Kinda cool. The door shown below was a little fix-it job I had some fun with. The original vent door for my uncle's fireplace had broken off (cast iron is like that). He needed a new door that could be fit to the original hinge. I figured the saw blade made a nice reference to the fire inside, and plus, it was just the right size.
Fireplace  door, vent closed 2002: saw blade, steel 8" x 8" Commission	Fireplace  door, vent open 2002: saw blade, steel 8" x 8" Commission
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Tags: art, iron work, metal, recycled, steel

Modern Security Grates in Steel + Copper

Keeping out of the Jones', 2004 steel, copper. dimensions variable Commission
Elise Jones wanted burglar bars for her ground floor windows, but she didn't want to feel like she was in prison when she looked through them. These steel and copper grilles will definitely keep people out—but they do seem to attract admiring stares. When I returned to the site to finish installation, I met an architect who requested that I tender his apologize to the Jones family…he had been standing there looking at the grates for ten or fifteen minutes before he realized that he was also inadvertently staring into someone's window.
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Tags: art, modernist, design, modern design, fence, fun, funky, garden, gate, iron work, metal, steel, yard

Frank Lloyd Wright Styled Fence in Steel, Slate, Copper + Glass

Frank Lloyd Wright Inspired Fence, 2004 steel, slate, durock, vitreous glass, copper. 48" H x 48" W x 1.5" D (per section) Commission
The floral pattern in these fences was designed to complement clerestory windows overlooking the courtyard where they are installed. Incorporating natural slate, iridescent glass mosaic tile and copper, this project is the culmination of techniques I have been developing over the past few years. Although the original plans called for the sections to be painted black, the clients chose a rust finish in order to integrate more naturally with the landscape.
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Tags: art, modernist, design, modern design, fence, fun, funky, garden, gate, iron work, metal, steel, yard

City Gates, 4022 N. Sheridan Road Chicago

City Gates, 2002 Steel. 96" H x 96" W x 2" D Commission
City Gates, commissioned by Bob Racky for his offices at 4022 N. Sheridan Road, Chicago, features two pairs of gates based on maps of the Chicago area. The south gates show Riverside, IL and feature urban planning by Frederic Law Olmstead in the lower left corner. It's not on every project that an ironworker gets to “quote” the designer of Central Park! The north gates are based on Des Plaines, IL and contain the only obvious clue to the design source...a railroad running through the upper right corner.
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Tags: art, design, fence, modern, gate, iron work, metal, steel

A Love Story: Narrative Fence in Steel, Glass, Copper and Brass

Acrobat Fence, 2002 Steel, Durock, porcelain, paint. 48" H x 120" W x 2" D Commission.
Having seen pictures of my Acrobat Fence, my friends Howie and JoAnn approached me to design four sections of fence to enclose a round garden at their Evanston, Illinois residence. Together, they scripted a narrative telling the story of their lives together in four acts: meeting and falling in love; traveling Asia; their first child, Gabriel; and their second child, Julian. This project is a  great example of artist/client collaboration. Through coversations and stories JoAnn told me, I was able to get a good feel for the personality and expression of each member of the family. Gabriel loves snakes, so in his panel, the family goes for a ride on a snake. Julian is really into math, so I portrayed him juggling numbers while the rest of the family plays or looks on. Each character is portrayed  using a different color glass: Howie is blue, JoAnn is green, Gabriel is red and Julian, yellow. The inside of the fence was done in copper instead of mosaic to keep the widths of the heads proportionate. This constraint actually turned out to be a good thing, because Howie prefers the copper and JoAnn loves the glass mosaic.
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Tags: art, design, fence, fun, funky, garden, gate, iron work, metal, steel, yard

Scrap Iron Fence 2208 S. Halsted Chicago, IL

Scrap Fence,  2208 S. Halsted, 2002 steel, cast iron. 83" H x 284" W x 6" D Collaboration with Kenneth Morrison Commission. A collaboration with kenneth Morrison. He originated the concept and sketched a rough layout for overall project. I designed and fabricated indivdual panels. The choice of which panels went together was his. It was a little like an enormous steel version of the exquisite corpse game played by the Surrealists...in which players take turns adding to a drawing without seeing the parts drawn by the last player.
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Tags: art, design, fence, funky,