Thanks to a grant from the Somerville Arts Council and the interest of the Kennedy After School program, a group of students in Kindergarten through 5th grade worked with artist Emily Bhargava for ten weeks in 2015 and 2016 to design and build whimsical garden-themed mosaic panels inspired by their own experience with gardens. Their mosaics were then installed on the sides of the raised garden beds as a permanent addition to the playground.
After learning about mosaic techniques and reading books about gardens, members of the Garden Mosaic Club did a collaborative design process to develop preliminary sketches for the panels. Emily Bhargava combined elements of the sketches into a series of full-size line drawings that the students used to place mosiac tiles. Indoors, the group built the mosaic on mesh, and Emily then mounted them on cement board before the group grouted them. Once they were grouted and dry, Emily built frames for the panels and installed them on the sides of the garden beds.
