Haitian Veves and French Mosaics

Hey all –

Here’s a little bit about the research I’ve been doing…

In Haitian culture, the God of water is called Agwe and the Goddess of Love is Erzulie. The spirit of the Gods appear in representations called Veves, often used in rituals. Here’s one of Erzulie:

Vévés (often spelled with accents) change a little according to region and artist but are most often very vibrant glittery creations, appearing on flags. Here’s one of Agwe:

Because boats and the water are very important to Haitians and Haitian culture, and because many have journeyed away from the country by boat, Agwe flags are used ritualistically to request safety. You’ll also see the image on the side of a home sometimes.

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From France comes a mosaic practice called picassiette. La Maison Picassiette near Chartres, is a house and garden that are completely covered in broken crockey, pottery, porcelain and china. It was executed by Raymonde Isidore, a manual laborer, who lived there. The story goes that one day he found a pretty piece of broken pottery and glued it to his fence. From there, he just kept going. 30,000 people visit this place yearly. Here’s a picture of part of it… (Inside the home, even the meat grinder is mosaicked).

When people say that they’re a mosaicist working in picassiette, that means that they mainly used broken china, pottery, earthenware, etc.

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Inspired by Haitan and French cultures, I’d like to create a mosaicked Veve bringing Erzulie and Agwe, love and water together, in effort toward healing. I’d like to get a few music boxes to include on the back on the piece, ones that might play various kinds of music that come out of NOLA. I need one that plays the National Anthem or America the Beautiful too (in order to speak to another kind of healing necessary). I’d like to include little vases in the piece too where we can tuck wishes or trinkets, etc.

For the materials for the piece, I’ll collect items from New Orleans such as this tiny doll’s tea cup (which I found at an antique store today!):

as well as pieces of things found as we’re combing the streets. I hope Karen and I can hit a few second hand stores while we’re there in June in order to collect other NOLA pieces that can be broken and used as tesserae. Perhaps even you have something you'd like to contribute?

So, depending on how it turns out, we might be able to donate or even sell the mosaic and give the proceeds away. We can see about that…

Anyway, I’d love to hear your ideas and would be happy to hear any questions. Hope we can use the piece as part of our set, installation, something or other…

Looking forward to reading about your research!

Thanks,

Lisa Arnold