Jeffery began his ‘mosaic pilgrimage’ travelling to Madrid in Spain and then on to Lisbon, Portugal, and like any good pilgrimage, it didn’t take him long tohave an epiphany. Here, standing in a city encrusted in mosaics made fromsmall hand split blocks of white limestone and black basalt, every plazaand sidewalk had a different design, everywhere he went he was looking at marvellousdecorative pavements, something he had never seen back home. So this was it. Jeffery Bale from of Eugene, Oregon, USA felt destined to return home to Americato replace its concrete pavements with stones and jewels.
So when he returned home he set to work on a patio for his newly purchased home in N.E. Portland. His design was inspired afterreading the ‘Tao of Physics’ by Fritjof Capra. Not really knowing themethods of construction in Spain, he developed his own technique, setting thepebbles in a bed of wet mortar.
From here Jeffery honed his mosaicing skills by creatingmosaics whenever the opportunity arose, mainly making mosaics for friends andfamily. It wasn’t until a few yearslater that he convinced a client in Northwest Portland to let him build apebble mosaic patio for him, along with a mosaic path and parking strippavements. The patio is a 12 by 18 foot Persian Carpet. This patio wouldlater be photographed by Alan Mandell and Jerry Harpur of England, being published several times, and even making the cover of Landscape ArchitectureMagazine in August of 2005.
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| The Persian Carpet |
Suddenly Jeffery was not just a garden designer anymore, he was bonafide pebble mosaic artist as well, meaning that he could frequently incorporate these lovelymosaics into many of his projects.
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| Parking Strip mosaic Mother giving birth with the moon in her hair |
Looking at one of Jeffery’s mosaic creation, one can beginto appreciate the time and effort that must have been put in to create it. Eachstone has been carefully placed by colour, shape and size to fit into these wonderfulshapes and patterns. But what one might easily overlook is that every single stonein each mosaic has not only been laid by Jeffery, they have also been painstakingly picked by him.
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| Jeffery carefully selecting stones in a big heap of Montana Rainbow Pebble Mix |
"I’ve spent a fairamount of my adult life gathering the materials needed to build thesemosaics. Each pebble is selected for shape and sorted by color, whetherbeach combing or sitting on piles of rainbow rock in a stone yard. I haveto look at every single one to discern whether it will fit amongst thethousands of it’s brethren." Jeffery Bale
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| 'Council Ring’ fire pit. Most of the stone for this project was gathered from the beach below the property, giving it a strong connection to it’s setting. |
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| Cyphers and Constellations in Love with a Woman, inspired by the paintings of Joan Miro |
One of my personal favorite pieces by Jeffery is actually the footpath below. It makes up part of a number of mosaics around one of his clients houses. The group of mosaics are inspired by the paintings of Spanish painter
Joan Miro (including the mosaic 'Mother giving birth with the moon in her hair')
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| Molalla stone footpath with another mosaic inspired by Miro's work |
I love the simplicity of the footpath. The skilfully arranged Molalla flagstones are cut and tightly fitted together, with the gaps filled with pebble mosaic which connects to the other Miro inspired mosaics in the garden. Jeff also cleverly incorporated gaps between the rectangle pads to allow for permeability in the pavement, and for the garden to flow through the work in planted lines. |
| 'The River of Life' |
The ‘mosaicpilgrimage’ that Jeffery set out on back in 1987, is in fact one that hecontinues throughout his career. When ever the opportunity arises Jeffery setsoff to get inspired by the different cultures and mosaics from around theworld.
Looking through his portfolio of work you can see much of what he hastaken back home with him from socking in these different cultures.
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| The Moroccan inspired Sunken Garden |
Jeffery has a wonderful blog that I recommend checking out.In his blog Jeffery documents his ‘mosaic pilgrimage’ sharing many of the wonderful mosaicsites, architecture, culture and mind blowing colours from around the world. http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com  |
| Mosaic inspiration from Jeffery's blog |
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| Moroccan inspired fire pit. The pit is built up of bands of pebble mosaic using black and gold Mexican beach pebbles, which are then capped with a band of eight pointed stars matching the other mosaics in the garden. |
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| Islamic Geometry in a small patio in one of Jeffery's gardens in Portland |
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| Brazilian Carnival inspired mosaic parking strip |
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| Lotus Step Stone Path.The lotus blossoms, alluding to a Buddhist Jataka Tale about Sidhartha Gautama being born, and having lotus blossoms spring from his footprints. |
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| Full Moon Spiral Mosaic |
There is much more amazing work by Jeffery that I was hoping to share with you, but as this post is starting to get quite long I will leave it at that. To see more information about Jeffery and more photos of his work check out his website
http://www.jeffreygardens.com.
For a more complete and comprehensive look at Jeffery's work, I highly recommend getting a copy of his self-published book '
The Gardens of Jeffery Bale' This book along with other publications by Jeffery can be ordered online through the following link
Books by Jeffery Bale
Thanks to Jeffery Bale for his kind permission for the use of the photos and writings from his website and blog for this post.
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