The Mosaic Headboard

Ever since I don't know when, I've saved every piece of broken pottery, every chipped dish, every earring missing its mate, every bracelet no longer wearable due to its stretched out elastic. 

Packed away in paper bags and boxed up, stored in the basement, garage or attic, I always thought I would do something with those broken pieces.  Though no artist, and certainly not the artistic type, I had visions of creating a backsplash for my kitchen of all those beautiful fragments of things I loved but no longer had.

This thought stayed with me for years.  I wondered how I could do it, what mortar or grout would I use?  I imagined I should make this backsplash on plywood so if ever I moved, the backsplash could come with me. But I never got the project off the ground and two decades later I did move and I moved all that broken stuff with me.  

In my new home there was barely a backsplash and I was renting, so that option wouldn't work.  I considered making a table but soon realized that was impractical...I had no room for another table and it would be very heavy.  I tucked the mosaic project way in the back of my mind and there it stayed.

A set of plastic placemats
were doing headboard duty.

Then, I was scheduled to have knee replacement surgery and knew that recovery would be a long haul and wasn't that a good time to tackle this project?  So in earnest, I revisited the mosaic project.

Suddenly, it came to me — a headboard.  Why not make a mosaic headboard?  I had a platform bed and no headboard.   I had the room for it and how hard could that be?  It seemed pretty straightforward and so, measurements in hand, I began to look for a headboard. Easily found online, at about $100 (plus shipping) I knew that was not what I was willing to pay.  Perhaps $20-30, but not more.  Regularly I searched in all my favorite thrift stores.  The headboards with legs — which I thought would be easiest — proved problematic due to the fit and the difficulty in attaching it to either the wall or the platform.

I looked and I looked and I looked without finding.  Thrift store after thrift store.  All my favorite places I thought would provide what I was looking for, but no.  When I'd almost given up, I found something that seemed pretty perfect.  

A simple panel that was brown — a good match with most of the furniture in the room — with some small inset detailing that would help me frame or contain the mosaic.  Though it was only pressboard and had a few bashes around the edges, it seemed perfect and it was only $3! SOLD!

And then the pandemic hit.

What I imagined would last a week or two became a month and then more.  Not only was I sequestered but slowly became completely panicked about the knee surgery.  Surely this was not going to be a time to go in to a hospital and then what?  Who would come tto help me?  Not friends.  Did I want a stream of healthcare workers in my home who might also be serving those with Covid?  I rapidly shelved the idea of the knee and thought more about the headboard.  I decided to dig in.

It required opening the dining room table to its capacity.  I was primed to get prepped and started.  With excited anticipation I opened the box containing all the treasures for this project...and they were utterly FILTHY!  Years of being stowed in basements and attics had covered the ceramics in dust and dirt and dead bugs.  UGH!  I would actually have to wash it all before doing anything else. And so I did.  Immersed in one sink of hot soapy water and then rinsed in another and laid out to dry.  PHEW! Now I was ready to move on!

It wasn't going to be that easy.

I quickly realized that the broken pieces were going to have to be broken more.  They weren't the size I wanted or they were curved and jagged and well, not functional for this project.  So I went online and looked at YouTube and realized I was going to have to cut those pieces which would require a tile cutter and special gloves and goggles and a hammer.  Good grief.  

A neighbor actually had tile cutters I could borrow.  I bought the special gloves, found my hammer and a deep box I could smash things in.  I felt I'd met the challenge and could move on.  I separated all that pottery into like colored groupings. I began to see that this was really going to happen and now I needed the glue.

This is but a fraction of what I had. Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the three-tiered rolling cart 
that was loaded with the 25 lbs of sorted pieces in multiple color ranges for my project.

The glue...simple enough, right?  I knew I needed clear because I wasn't sure about grouting the entire thing. In my mind's eye I didn't picture it as a fitted-together mosaic, to me the pieces were sort of floating.  I knew I could decide later but I definitely needed a clear adhesive.  I steeled myself, mask and gloves (it was still early in the pandemic) and I went to Home Depot.  Overwhelmed by the many choices and not really able to distinguish between them, I asked for help.   The sales assistant seemed less sure than I was but eventually handed me a tube of an adhesive that said it was a clear sealant.  Seemed good to me.

I was ready. Everything was in place.  Except for one really crucial element.  How was this going to be attached to the wall?  If it was going to be covered in pottery that might not work to screw it in.  It was going to be heavy and I certainly didn't want it to come out of the wall and crush my skull while sleeping.  And since this home was a rental, I needed to minimize damage to the wall...back to the internet to search where I found my solution: the elegant French cleat.

and what one-half of it looks like.[Those are NOT my nails.]

The premise of this mechanism... 

A what? you ask? A French cleat. Used to hang heavy mirrors.  A French cleat that could handle 200 lbs and could easily be attached to the wall...or so I thought.  

Clearly, the cleat would have to be attached to the back of the headboard BEFORE any mosaic work could begin. To attach that cleat I'd need to measure the correct alignment, find the studs in the wall, drill it both into the wall and the back of the headboard, requiring a stud finder and a drill and ultimately, a 40-minute FaceTime consultation with my daughter's friend Brantley in Brooklyn (THANK YOU Brantley) who patiently, patiently, patiently helped me understand the French cleat (I was not realizing how to connect the two pieces) and how to get it where I needed it to be...SIGH.

Finally.  With my daughter's help, the cleat was attached to the wall and headboard.  I could begin the painstaking work of arranging the pieces, breaking them, cutting them, chipping them into the shapes I wanted.  Over 200 pieces painstakingly selected and placed in a pleasing way.  It began to resemble what I imagined it to be.  I realized the edges would need some finishing so I found the scrap of someone's unused kitchen backsplash (87 cents)that would provide varying rectangles in subtle tans and browns that would perfectly complement the headboard and fit exactly. [I later found another backsplash remnant that had bigger pieces and would make it all go much faster (see below)  but these were a mathematical conundrum that my friend Susan's husband, Howard had to calculate how many of which sizes would most closely match the lengths of the sides as I couldn't cut these thick blocks to fit.  Another mini-nightmare. THANK YOU Howard.]

So all was in place.  I had the way to hang, the glue, the pieces in place (including lots of jewelry from my friend that would adorn the pottery — thank you Laura !] the finishing touches for the edges.  I was happy with how it all had come together. And for some reason, each time I approached that headboard to start gluing things in place, I stopped.  I did not even open the adhesive to begin. I walked by it multiple times a day staring at the design and still not able to move forward.  It sat there for months.  It went on so long that more than one friend pressed me to figure out why I couldn't finish this thing and get it done.

Why couldn't I? I asked my therapist over Zoom.

"Well how about you try to glue something down right now, while we're in session?" she suggested helpfully.

Wow, I thought as I moved my laptop and arranged it on the table and opened the glue and actually lifted a piece, squeezed a tab of glue and placed it on top.  I was shocked at how easy it was and moved on to the next and the next and then suddenly, with absolutely no warning, I started to cry.  Sob in fact, and slumped down on a dining room chair and could not stop crying.

Soothingly, my therapist (a real gem) said "What's going on?  What are you feeling?" and though it took a bit it came to me with an overwhelming sadness.

"All of these pieces, the everyday dishes, the favorite vase that broke in the move, my sister and sister-in-law's shattered things, are the broken pieces of my past, and if I glue them down, it's admitting that there's no fixing them.  There's no going back. They'll never be whole again," I jerkingly sobbed.

"Oh, but look what you're doing with those pieces of your past; you're making something beautiful of them."  she wisely shared.

Deep breath.

That revelation broke the dam and after a day or two I thought, "I'm ready now."  There was just one problem:  those three pieces were not stuck!  You could move them and wiggle them — what the hell???

Turns out that the "adhesive sealant" was actually more of a clear grout and not a glue.  Back to the drawing board and to the local, been-here-in-town-for-decades, hardware store where I was steered to a much smaller, way more expensive tube of a multi-grip glue.  Yes, yes, yes.  This one worked and piece by piece I attached over 200 pieces to that board.  I did it while listening to lectures or touring art museums on Zoom.  I got it done and then moved on to the edges. I knew I'd have to wait to add the crowning touches on the top after the board was hung.  I called my son to come help me move this monstrousity and get the damn thing up on the wall, which he did.  HOORAY!!!

It was too low.

It was level but it just didn't look its best.  It needed to come up about eight inches but my son needed to go and I was drained from all this cumulative effort.  We decided to revisit this another time.  SIGH.  Still, I could enjoy the fruits of this tortuous labor.  I could admire the breadth of it and all the beautiful shards that were there.  And I could try it out to see if in the night, a flung arm would get scraped or bleed from contact with all those ungrouted sharp edges EVERYWHERE.  But it didn't hurt me, thank goodness.  It was unconventional and you wouldn't exactly easily sit up in bed against it without proper padding but I'm not one to read in bed.  I began to glue on tiny fragments from the earrings, bracelet charms, necklace beads, tie tacks and pins I had in abundance.  The figurine head (another entire story of its own) fit perfectly, though I had to sit holding her for 40 minutes until I was certain she was fully in place.  I still had the little ceramic Chinese astrological zodiac figures to glue on top but those could wait until we removed and replaced the board at the correct height.

I'd forgotten to share that the "Lead From The Heart" and the little black heart  had to be taken to a friend of my ex
to cut with a tile cutter that spun in water — quite an undertaking.  Thank you Gene!

It was done.  Rehung at the proper height, eventually with the tiny Chinese zodiac animals adorning the top, I could finally, finally admire the fruits of my less than $20, many, many hours, and lifetime of emotions labor and investment.  It was a thing of beauty and a smile emerged each time I walked into my bedroom and gazed upon all that I had done.

This pandemic pushed me into this work that was completely out of my comfort zone in more ways than one but I had persevered and made something that truly gave me happiness.  I could've told this more simply, spared you many of the agonizing details, but the story of this headboard had to be told in its entirety to appreciate the journey it required and represented.  I hope in your time of Covid you have found a way to make something of beauty out of what's broken in your lives.  

I don't know if this will work but I tried making a video showing the completed work.