Many years ago, when we had a website called Didsbury Life, promoting independent businesses in Didsbury and West Didsbury, we had a beautiful office, right on Burton Road. We designed the logo for this business and commissioned our very talented friend, Amanda, to create a mosaic sign for the front of the premises.
This mosaic came back to our West Didsbury home when we gave up the office premises and sat in our garden for a good few years. When we had the house and garden renovated, it was properly installed on a wall and was only taken down to be safely bubble wrapped and packed for the journey out to Istria with us, where it still sits in our garden. She’s a bit weather worn now and the effect of hot sunshine and rain and frost has meant that some of the tile pieces have fallen off, but she’s still as beautiful as the first day she was handed to us, and she is a reminder of our West Didsbury life.
However, she’s not the only mosaic we have by Amanda, because when we renovated our home in West Didsbury, we asked her to create a piece of art with the name of our road on it, which we displayed in our bathroom. The black and white mosaic, set against white metro tiles, looked lovely.
And, six years later, we’ve finally found a home for Arley Avenue. She’s never been on the wall here, as we’ve never found the perfect place – until now. The house is being spruced up to go back on the market and as well as lots and lots of painting, we’ve also been de-cluttering. Or “packing up” in preparation for a potential move, and so wall space has revealed itself a whole lot more, and our M20 mosaic has found a new home. For now.
Amanda has a huge repertoire of mosaics and is widely commissioned to create individual and bespoke pieces. If you are interested in acquiring a very unique piece of art – for yourself, as a gift (we had one created to celebrate a family wedding) or as signage, for example – check out Amanda’s work. As an artist, I’m sure she’d be delighted to receive enquiries – and possibly commissions. And, she’s blooming lovely, too!
Amanda also offers workshops, where you can get to learn some of the skills required, and come away with a mosaic of your own. Very popular are the “Make a Manchester Bee” workshops at Manchester Art Gallery. Full information on Amanda’s website.
