Mosaic Sphere to Mended Pieces

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has taken a job at Johns Hopkins. And a new business, Mended Pieces Mosaics, moved in almost immediately.

Mended Pieces owner Tricia Huffman is a former student of Hanansen who'd been hoping to be an instructor at Mosaic Sphere. "I've been doing mosiacs out of a barn on my property for five years," Huffman says, and also teaching mosaic classes. Hanansen approached her, says Huffman, and said "'I'm moving to Baltimore, do you want to take over the space?' And I said, 'What, are you kidding?'"

Huffman says she's been doing mosaics since she was a kid. "My grandmother was an artist, an oil painter, and she let me break up dishes in her house and do mosaics on her furniture," she says--then laughs, because she went through a ton of dishes. "I wouldn't let my kids do that!" She's also been selling her pieces at outdoor fairs for years, including the State Street Area Art Fair.

The name Mended Pieces Mosaics doesn't mean Huffman's in business to fix people's broken mosaics, although she'll do it if asked. "Mended Pieces Mosaics means bringing pieces together to make something beautiful," she explains. And she's not just talking about bits of glass and tile: "I take bicycle parts, machine parts, thumbtacks, fingernails, shells." She's made mosaics on mirrors, tabletops, panels, furniture, and almost anything else you can think of.