One of Carl Myers' new coin mosaics coming together on-island yesterday. The image is of Michael's wife Tamara making a funny face. It's titled "Amarat," Tamara backwards. The piece is part of a pair; the beautiful pose is coming together today. (photo credit: Michael Schwartz via iPhone)
As we close in on the home stretch to open the new restaurant in the Cayman Islands, we’re going to be blogging a lot more on the people making the transition from Miami and their roles getting the operation going. Michael was down on Monday and Tuesday this week to check in on construction. Along went our designer, the fabulous Carl Myers, to supervise the fabrication of his coin mosaics.
As in Miami, the walls of the Cayman space (situated on The Crescent in the ‘New Town Centre’ of Camana Bay on Grand Cayman Island) will be adorned with brand spanking new shimmering portraits. We were curious about the inspiration behind them, and how they came to be in the first place. So we emailed Carl a few questions, and he kindly obliged.
When did you first get the idea for the coin portraits? The ‘idea’ of creating ‘mosaic’ images came to me in the early ’90s. An idea for a piece would be clear in my mind, but when my hands touched wood and nail or ink and paper, the vision evaporated. I searched and searched for methods to express my ideas that seemed to be so clearly visible in my head, but nothing worked. Finally, I needed to document a moment in my life and preserve an important image. To this end, I made my first portrait in 2003 with a wood panel, glue and gold leaf.
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