• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Contact
    • About the Gabber
  • Get your Gabber
  • Support the Gabber!
  • News
    • Vote
  • Arts
  • Food
  • Lifestyle
    • The Gabs
    • Adopt A Pet
    • Voices
    • Take the Gabber
    • Obituaries
  • Events
    • View All Events
    • Add Your Event
  • Classified Ads
    • View Classifieds
    • Purchase A Classified
  • Current Issue

Bringing Art of the Past into the Present

January 7, 2021 by Lynn Taylor

A mosaic tile art in a rectangular frame depicting wave and a sun
Photo courtesy of Margo Christie.

Gulfport artist Margo Christie says she’s been creating art since early childhood. 

Her earliest works were pastel drawings based on French artist Paul Gauguin’s South Seas landscapes. So it is no coincidence that her current art is influenced by another type of French art – “Pique Assiette” – using recycled materials such as stained glass, broken cups, dishes and tiles to create mosaics. In English, pique assiette means “thief of plates” or “scrounger.”

“You could say I scrounge up old stuff to make art,” says Christie. “As an art and collectibles dealer in Denver for eight years, I fell in love with delicately hand-painted porcelain teacup and saucer sets.”

To create her colorful wall art, she starts with a hand-painted teacup at the center. From there, Christie builds it out, adding her own touches to the art form by incorporating seashells, glass gems and custom cuts of stained glass to create a beachy splash of color.

Colorful painting of apartments
Photo courtesy of Margo Christie.

Since moving to Gulfport five years ago, Christie has exhibited her work at First Friday events and the Gulfport Tuesday Fresh Market. A mixed media, stained glass hand-painted window she created for the Best Seat in the House Chair-ity Auction (With a View!) scheduled in March 2021, is currently on display at the Gulfport Public Library.

Most recently she was a guest pop-up artist at Beach House 5317, where an art collector inquired about her work and ended up at Christie’s home studio where she bought the entire inventory of 6X6 mosaics for her home in Tennessee. Christie is scheduled for another pop-up spot at Beach House in January.

A mosaic tile art in a rectangular frame depicting flowers
Photo courtesy of Margo Christie.

Christie also continues to work with pastels, making drawings embellished with bits of colored paper, ribbon and wood. She says she likes to decorate the mats of the pastel drawings to give them a dimensional frame. Combined with the tactile elements added to the drawings, it creates the feeling of a scene viewers can step into. One of her favorites is a drawing of row houses in Baltimore, her hometown, done in a similar style to her Florida imagery. Another is of her sister admiring the bougainvilleas at Pia’s Trattoria in Gulfport.

Christie explains that the pique assiette mosaics draw on her appreciation of both art and collectibles.

“I found a way to utilize the beauty of someone else’s forgotten art – the floral scene on the porcelain – to create wall art that is frilly and whimsical at the same time.”

Find more at margochristie.wordpress.com. 

A piece of colorful outdoor art in a rectangle frame
Photo courtesy of Margo Christie.

Want to talk about this post? Click here and discuss on Facebook!

by Lynn Taylor

Support the Gabber

Team Gabber brought back the print version of the newspaper, and we've redesigned our website to make it easier for you to get the news. We're not out of the woods yet, and every little bit helps pay our reporters, printer, and other expenses. Support local news and families — donate now to keep The Gabber Newspaper serving the community it loves!

Please support local news and The Gabber Newspaper!

Filed Under: Arts Tagged With: Gulfport Florida Artists, Margo Christie Gulfport Florida Artist, pique assiette art

Primary Sidebar

Crossword

Sudoku

© 2021 All Rights Reserved | The Gabber Newspaper