Carol Sackman & Blake White

BLAKE WHITE & CAROL SACKMAN: Mosaic mania
Nearly two decades ago, artists Blake White and Carol Sackman bid adieu to Baltimore's frigid winters for the year-round sunshine of Pinellas County. After 10 years in Tarpon Springs, they moved to a ranch-style home in Dunedin. Since then, the couple's efforts to encrust the home's exterior walls with glittering ceramic mosaics have made it a neighborhood attraction, signaling visitors with a whimsical purple-and-green mailbox. (Sometimes friends and strangers even leave behind bags of porcelain or pottery as donation.)
The couple's mosaic mania began in 2000, when they took a creative approach to redecorating one of the home's tiny bathrooms, covering the floor and lower walls with brightly colored ceramic shards and tile, painting the upper surfaces a vivid tangerine and creating a faux-mosaic of abstract patterns inside the shower. As a finishing touch, they mounted one of White's stained glass pieces over the window. The tiny room spurred a tradition that spilled out onto the home's façade, where they've installed mosaics along two exterior walls, outside Sackman's garage studio and along a backyard fence. And they're not finished yet.
Inside, the home is a riot of tropical colors: fuchsias, tangerines, lemons and limes. A guest room inspired by Mexico features bright orange walls and accessories, from a desk painted by Sackman to a fluorescent sunflower bedspread. In the "coffee lover's kitchen," yellow cabinets stamped with a steaming mug pattern show off her skill at carving rubber slabs into detailed stamps. A comparatively low-key living room in soothing green tones showcases paintings of wildlife, a large landscape painted by Sackman's grandfather and a handcrafted Norwegian-style wood cabinet stocked with ceramic folk art. In the bedroom, a harmonious den of rose and green, more of White's striking stained glass pieces and Sackman's painted furniture take center stage along with her collection of dolls from around the world.
In a backyard dense with foliage (home to the couple's six cats), mosaic-covered birdbaths stud the landscape along with outdoor sculptures produced by other artists. Along a wooden fence and Sackman's studio, the couple's large-scale mosaics spin narratives through pictures. Often, hers depict strong female figures in painted ceramic form -- e.g., a series of self-portraits completed by the artist's closest friends -- while his explore myths of creation and strife between powerful ancient Egyptian and Aztec gods. Though each makes a living in a different fashion -- White as a commercial painter, Sackman by making jewelry, paintings, stamps and painted furniture -- the mosaics offer a glimpse into the center of their creative universe.
Carol and Blake's studio is also their home. Give them a call and stop to reveiw truly orginal artwork.