A true community effort! by Tamara Froud, Mosaic Art Ltd

15th September 2022

Through patience and persistence, this wonderful mosaic has finally been installed in the Conway Recreation Ground.

Late in 2019, I was contacted by Keith Weller from the Friends of Conway Rec regarding a Mosaic Learning Circle for the park. The idea was to involve the children from nearby St. Monica’s School. And then the pandemic hit. Rather than working face-to-face with the children I was forced to create mini videos to engage them. I asked them to look around the park and take note of flora and fauna. As a result, I was sent some wonderful drawings which inspired the design. One bonus of the lockdowns was that I had plenty of time to think about how the mosaic could work not only as a thing of beauty to look at, but also as a true stepping stone to learning about Conway Recreation Ground and all the wonderful nature in it.

With gentle encouragement and persistence, The Friends supported me through the making process and laid the base and the surrounding setts. The mosaic was created off-site in the studio and installed over a few days in June 2022. With colour coded backgrounds, the circle features trees, insects, flowers and invertebrates in the outer ring; vertebrates, birds and lifecycle elements in the inner ring and the pond in the middle. The initials in the water and in the border are a quiet commemoration of members of the Friends group, sadly lost over the pandemic. A huge thank you to the Friends of the Rec, all my helpers along the way, St Monica’s School, the base builder, Laticrete UK for providing the cement elements free of charge to make this possible and the whole Conway Rec Community who were so positive, supportive and helpful over the installation!