Jacki Gran
Hello to all our SAMA members!
It is with gratitude and a full heart that I write this letter to you all.
For those who don’t know me, I am Jacki Gran, President of the SAMA Board of Trustees and a SAMA member for 22 years. On behalf of the Board of Trustees, and our volunteer Executive Director, Dawnmarie Zimmerman, I would like to welcome all our new members. We are also very grateful for the support expressed by our many long-time members. In the past, the Board President wrote a letter to membership quarterly in our Groutline magazine (years of archived issues are available to
members on our website) and I thought it was time to begin that again.
SAMA’s mission is to educate, inspire and promote excellence in mosaic arts. I have been able to see our success as the mosaic community around the country has grown and thrived. Regional groups, mosaic schools, exhibitions, galleries, suppliers, teachers, tours and online communities developed from a seed planted in Orangeburg, SC in 1999. Six mosaic artists set out to build a community and created a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit organization in 2000. I’m sure SAMA’s influence in the mosaic world became so much more than our founders could have imagined!
Recently I was at a mosaic exhibition in Lincoln, Maine. The artist, Rose White, learned to mosaic at an Adult Education course taught by the school art teacher, Holly Boyce. I taught Holly to mosaic and she taught others. Holly incorporated mosaics into the school’s curriculum and her students created mosaic murals at several buildings in their town. Rose attended our conference in Nashville and has become an excellent artist, selling and exhibiting. Another neighbor, Michelle Ferland, joined SAMA and attended 2 conferences taking every workshop she could. You know when you throw a pebble in the lake and watch the hundreds of ripples? These are a few examples of my ripples because I joined SAMA. My first mosaic class was an
Adult Ed course with SAMA member Antonietta DiPietro. I thought I would be making a trivet with tile and a glue gun, but she brought her hammer and hardie and taught reverse method mosaic with smalti! I joined SAMA the following year and never could have imagined what I would create as I continued to learn and grow as an artist. I have traveled around the world
because of SAMA, I have made dear friends because of SAMA, and I continue to serve SAMA so others have these amazing, life changing opportunities too.
SAMA is currently preparing for the American Mosaic Summit – Artists Immersion conference and Mosaic Arts International exhibition in Greater Detroit this September and I’m looking forward to seeing many of you then. There are still spaces available for excellent workshops and tours!
Next year we celebrate 25 years and I hope you will all be there to celebrate with us. Planning has begun so stay tuned for more information as the vision comes together! I am so glad you are WITH US!
Jacki
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