• Mosaics
• 485 Kensington Ave
• Email: pippa.beck.mosaics@gmail.com
• Instagram: @pippabeckmosaics

A policy analyst by day and an artist by night, Pippa Beck has been making mosaics for over 20 years. Inspired by the natural world for her designs, Pippa often incorporates materials she finds while out on hikes, including stones and shells. She loves working with glass, particularly the highly textured smalti variety, also using pebbles, marble, crockery, ceramic tile and even plastic. “I absolutely love how ordinary pieces of glass, stone or ceramic can come together to create an effect that is much greater than the sum of its parts. For me, mosaic is a metaphor for community.”

Pippa is largely self-taught but has studied a variety of mosaic techniques in the past 5 years, including in Ravenna, Italy. The pandemic magically created more time in Pippa’s day, and she used this opportunity to take her art to the next level. In the spring of 2021 she challenged herself to complete a “mosaic marathon”, making a mini mosaic (4”x4”) every day for 42 days (reflecting the 42 km in a marathon). These small pieces comprised her first body of work, which she showed publicly later that fall.

Since then, Pippa joined Ontario Mosaic Artists, a new collective with a mission to raise the profile of contemporary mosaic art in the province. She is currently helping to organize OMA’s second exhibition, which will take place in Toronto in October. This is Pippa’s first time participating in the West End Studio Tour.