The Leucadia Town Council commissioned this project which was funded by the City of Encinitas.  I donated my time and skills to the project, and the glazes and tiles were paid for by the grant.  I broke quarry tiles and hand-painted each piece to make sure the mosaic pieces matched the colors in the murals.

My boys playing on the art project.  (Loction: Leucadia Oaks Park,  North Vulcan Avenue, Leucadia, California.)

We have a flock of wild parrots here in Leucadia.  The parrots are well-known and much-loved members of our community, so I thought it appropriate to include them in this permanent piece of public art.

The park where this project is located used to be a huge field of sunflowers when I was a little girl.  I painted this panel as a gesture to the past.  It has 5 butterflies going through the life cycle and 13 sunflowers.

California Gray Whales migrate along our coastline with their babies every year, so this panel is in honor of them.  This is the west-facing panel, with the whales and their babies travelling north.

This panel represents the many lagoons we have in our community.  I thought it would be fun for children in the park to find all of the fish and bugs and random creatures I have hidden throughout the piece.

 

Here is a closer look at some of the creatures in this panel: dragonflies, a caterpillar, beetles, a snail, a bee, frogs, fish, and a newt.

Mosaic on top with "thank you" tiles and a signature tile.  Miranda Saunders helped me paint the panels when my pregnant belly was too big to allow me to sit comfortably, and then she helped me with my newborn baby, Myles Meiche, while I worked to finish this project.