Mosaic as meant to be seen: on a public building.

Alamedia reveals how her art moves from her private garden to become public works.

Some artists’ work hangs on the white walls of commercial galleries or are displayed in museums under the watchful gaze of security guards. JaYing Wang’s mosaic work is on view 24/7 and beautifies the communities in which they are installed. She discovered mosaics 20 years ago nearly by accident while looking for a tile-painting class, and someone told her about renowned mosaic artist and instructor Elizabeth Raybee. “That’s definitely not anything that I was looking to do, but I took this class from her, and it was life-changing,” Wang says. “It’s more satisfying than painting or drawing to me. I think it’s the tactile 3D. You’re working with things, and you’re working with your hands.”

Wang moved to Alameda with her husband in 1995 and, while staying home with her young daughters, set about decorating their garden with her mosaic stepping stones, birdbaths, and tables. “And then it just progressed,” she says. Wang opened Children’s Art Studio near Lincoln Park in 2003. “It was wonderful working with the little kids and the families. I met great parents,” she says. She closed the studio five years later but continued to teach after-school art programs through the Alameda Education Foundation.

While many think of Wang as an arts educator, her own creations dot walls in Alameda and beyond. She created murals at Frank Otis, Earhart, Bay Farm, and Saint Philip Neri elementary schools, incorporating students’ own artwork. She’s completed large commissions elsewhere, work both sacred and secular, from a fountain in the courtyard of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco to a large piece for Cache Creek Casino in Brooks, involving a 10-foot diameter map of Asia and 12 2-foot medallions. Most recognizable to Alamedans, perhaps, is her sunflower mosaic on the fountain directly outside Trader Joe’s in South Shore Center. She cut an estimated 20,000 tiny squares from large panels of stained glass for the project, which marked her evolution from working solely with broken tiles.

Wang could have rested on these laurels but reflects, “There’s just some dissatisfaction with not doing enough, you know?” When Pillow Park at 1419 Park Street closed, she checked out a space at the far end of the indoor courtyard. “I saw the ceilings, envisioned glass hanging down from the rafters, and thought, I think I want this.” She and her friend Rachel Gingold, who is a painter, opened Artistic Home Studio & Boutique, a glass, decorative, and fine arts studio, just over a year ago. “We’re teaching kids on another level that you can’t really do as an afterschool class at the schools,” she says, and they provide instruction to adults as well. “Come in and learn something,” Wang says. “It’s really fun!”

More of Wang’s work can be seen on the Artistic Home Studio & Boutique website at www.ArtisticHomeStudio.com/Mosaics-by-JaYing.html, or simply take a stroll around Alameda to see them as they were intended.

This article appears in the July 2014 issue of Alameda Magazine
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