Monique Catino Art

Installing the mosaics for the Auburn Arts Plaza.  

Design by Kathy Frugé-Brown, in collaboration with Gail White Eagle of the Muckleshoot Tribal Arts Council.  
Fabrication: Kathy Frugé-Brown and Monique Catino.  

This project was funded by 4Culture in partnership with the City of Auburn.

With thanks to Kathy Frugé-Brown for the opportunity to work on this project!

The mosaics are a series of 7 foot sections, depicting transformations based on motifs found in the weavings and baskets of the Muckleshoot.  There are 7 sections, making for almost 50 feet of mosaics!  Those mosaics are installed on concrete benches, that will be part of a garden in the plaza next to the Arts Center.  The project was funded by 4Culture in partnership with the City of Auburn.

We taped the edges of the mosaics with blue tape, and protected the sides of the concrete benches with plastic sheets.  Then we applied grout.  The mosaics disappear beneath a layer of grout!

Kathy and I work the grout into all the spaces between the mosaic tiles. 

We each start on one side of a 7 foot section and work our way towards the middle.  After applying the grout, we use sponges and lots of water to carefully wash the grout off the glass tiles, making sure we don't touch the grout in between the tiles.  When everything is nice and clean, the mosaics need to cure.

Here is the finished product: about 50 feet of mosaics, in 7 sections of about 7 feet each:

All done!  The mosaics are finished.  Now the garden needs to be installed around the benches in the alley and the Arts Center needs to be renovated.