Three years ago at the Monte Sano Art Show in Huntsville, this was a work that everyone, it seemed, stopped to take in:
It’s by Bill Wilson, who came to Huntsville from Memphis, back when Werner von Braun was running things in H’ville and needed people proficient with computers. Bill had some great stories. It must’ve been just an incredible time to be working in rocketry.
Mosaic work – and pique assiette – is what Bill does now:
‘Pique assiette’ is the term for taking broken plates and such and putting them back together in pattern or design. The ‘father’ of pique assiette is Raymond Isidore (my friend Henk has a post about him here at his fantastic European art environments site, and there’s more at the end of this post in a nice video).
Beatles on the left:
…and this is what Bill called his ‘American Sampler’ made from coffee cups:
Bill will have some of his work (ooooh this is such a tiny-tiny sample, and I should have taken a thousand more pictures but it was so good just listening to him) at the upcoming Monte Sano Art Fair in Huntsville, which is always on the third Saturday in September.
Oh! And he’s also a poet. Yes, yes, yes:
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This is a video of the pique assiette home in Chartres, France by Ramond Isidore. Wow.
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Bill is blessed with incredibly successful children (each of them an artist). One is Emily Wilson. I promise, this is crazy-great art. Yesssss.