Rivers of color

Posted on | February 27, 2012 | 3 Comments

It was James Wood’s review of Edward St Aubyn’s “At Last” that drove me this rainy afternoon to Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, but it was a smattering of tiles around the rear stairwell and along the risers of the stairs leading to the parking lot that made the trip so much more gratifying than ordering the book on the Internet. I had noticed these tiles before, filthy, bunkered up against Southern Californian glare, but never like today, never basking in the milky light made so evenly luminous by cloud cover and rain. There, today, this tile work by the late Los Angeles mosaic artist Bill Crite amounted to rivers of color, so beautiful that even the camera in a frankly crummy cell phone began to capture their power and spirit.

Comments

3 Responses to “Rivers of color”

  1. Janis Hatlestad
    February 27th, 2012 @ 10:32 pm

    Have never been to Vroman’s. Must put it on my to do list. Thanks for sharing, Emily. Beautiful!

  2. Leigh Adams
    February 27th, 2012 @ 11:44 pm

    Thank you Emily! I will forward this to his family who will be pleased to see his work is still being enjoyed.

  3. Juliana Jones
    February 28th, 2012 @ 7:00 am

    Bill Crite’s mosaic tiles have always fascinated me from the moment I first saw them lovingly covering his first table top piece. I go to Vroman’s regularly because I can feel his presence in the lovely, colorful garden in the rear of the building. He was a beautiful soul!

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