There’s this woman, this artist, this presence here in Tucson and her name is Gail T. Roberts and she’s, in my opinion, pretty fab.

I visited her pop-arty house and turned it into a feature. It wasn’t difficult; who has pink papier mache pigs hanging from the ceiling? Her garage is a studio where very talented people gather to make 3-D tiles that she turns into murals and public art.

I visited her latest oeuvre last Friday, at the new elephant exhibit at Tucson’s Reid Park Zoo.

In Gail’s latest newsletter she describes the step-by-step journey needed to make the zoo art: repeated trips to make sure the mural would fit; working through several design concepts; creating a full-scale template, then the clay animals constructed on top (“fat” slabs of clay for the base, additional slabs for the 3-D representation); glazes based on careful research of the animals themselves; the tricky bit – carefully writing names on the tiles mentioning the donors who helped the exhib come to fruition, and in an African font, no less!; and finally attaching the tiles to eight sections of cement board, before installing the whole thing and then grouting 0n-site.

Wow. And here’s me balking at re-tiling the floor in my tiny shower room.

One Response to “Meet Gail Roberts”

1. Ann hartner
   May 17th, 2012 @ 8:13 am

   I received your painting from a friend. I think it is your it is signed on the back Gail Roberts 78. It is a large painting approx. 38×40 of plants in red clay pots and foil were you painting then and should a send a photo? Thanks for letting me know.

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