How to Protect Rusty Objects in Mosaic Wall

Q. I just ran across your wonderful wall images online. I am planning on making a mosaic backsplash in my kitchen using pieces of broken pottery and rusty objects I have found in my backyard. I am wondering if you can give me advice on any special cleaning/sealing or whatever is necessary for using old rusty things in a mosaic?

A. We used the rusty objects as they were and then covered them with a coat of polymer that was supposed to preserve the entire mural. Unfortunately it was not as good as we had been told. It peeled off in hunks within a few years and became unsightly. Betsy Schulz my art partner on the mural told me she has found a better polymer coating. I suggest you research at hardware and building supply stores in your area and also ask Customer Service at art companies for ideas. Here is what I recommend: thoroughly clean the objects, and let them dry completely until bone dry. Do not use anything that is already flaking. Dip or soak the good pieces briefly in a polymer liquid to coat them thoroughly and let them dry raised on a grating, or on the points of a wire brush, or on wide-headed nails that have been nailed upright on a board. This way the polymer coat will cover completely and preserve all parts of them. (If you lay them down on paper they will stick to the paper.)

I suggest that galvanized or brass or bronze objects, such as faucet handles, stainless steel gears, and other similar items, would look great in a kitchen and steam would not deteriorate them. We used some of these and they are still in excellent shape. We tried to give some shiny items, such as the newer horse shoes and one or two heavy gears, a patina by soaking them in a salt bath first, which worked pretty well, but in a kitchen stainless steel would look all right even if it was shiny. It will eventually dull without any treatment.

Recently the Del Mar Public Works washed our mural and results were good. (This mural is located in front of the Del Mar Public Library on Old 101, called Camino del Mar, in Del Mar, California.) Betsy had been wanting to have it cleaned for a long time. She repaired a few hunks that fell off. I plan to do some repair of little bits but have not yet done it because of my age and my body is not strong any more. The mural is now looking much better. The landscape above it has recently been replaced by a new and very attractive drought-resistant garden,  planted by the Del Mar Garden Club of which I am a member. (I did not take part in the planting of it, but donated some of the succulent plants used.) The mural is not ten years old yet but is now looking great again. Children find it fascinating and I often see them touching and stroking the objects in it.  Once I saw a little girl kiss one of the terra cotta pelicans in the mural. It touched my hear to see this. I remember being a small child and seeing similar things that meant a great deal to me.

Before making the mural I talked to one of my sons-in-law who was an engineer and he said after a while rust stabilizes but this is apparently not so. Some rusty objects stabilize and last many years, others flake off. Perhaps it depends on the quality of the object and of the metal used. For this reason Betsy no longer uses rusty objects in her art projects. She has done many wonderful and amazing projects that are highly artistic.

The style I chose for the mural was based on a wall I’d seen many years earlier in Laguna Beach that had a whole crankcase in it. This wall lasted many years, maybe 50 years, but is not there any more. A similar one survives to this day and seems in good shape, rusty objects included. I had just finished a similar wall in my own garden when I decided to make this one at the library and then Betsy became my partner. She was already a muralist and had experience. I was simply an artist with what I thought was a great idea and I was swept away with enthusiasm. I’d been to Barcelona twice within a couple of years and had seen all Gaudi’s work and I think it got in my psyche. I was mostly inspired by the style of the Laguna Beach murals I’d seen and loved for many years. I wanted to use a very simple color scheme: brick, “blue” beach rocks, terra cotta tiles which we made ourselves, green tiles of a special shade that to my eye “sang” with the terra cotta, and “found” objects, including beach glass and rusty objects.

I think it will be okay to do this in your kitchen since it will be protected. I am sending this to Betsy to see if she has ideas. All the rusty objects in my garden wall are doing fine.

A final note: always use the very best quality thinset to attach the objects to the wall. Indoors, Betsy has created original ceramic murals on a wooden backing so it can be taken off a wall and moved. But it has to be made in sections and each one is incredibly heavy. She made one of 3-D tile in a restaurant and when the restaurant changed hands was able to remove mural and mount it in another location. Although my book “the Magic Mural” sounds like, and in a sense is a children’s book, it’s actually a book written for adults who have not lost their “inner child”. A careful reading shows exactly how we made our multi-media mural.