The Birth of Buddy!
Rosebud 'Buddy' Mosaics was started when a marble mason, from Syracusa, Sicily, stowed away on a citrus boat and landed at Ellis Island NY in the early 1920's. Being a stowaway, and having no legal documents allowing him to come to America, he was held on Ellis Island until he could pass the requirements needed for his release. He finally earned his release, got his citizenship, and got a job. He moved to the Boston area and met and married a woman from Naples Italy. The man did any job he could find and maintained his passion for tile work and masonry every chance he got. He supported his family doing contractor jobs, but always had a spot in his heart for the touch, feel and smell of his native marble. That no one but he could 'smell' tile didn't seem to bother him. He had children. His children had children. He'd pull his oldest grandson from the 6th grade to go on side jobs, and in a way, apprentice him. (You could pull your kids/grandkids out of school in those days of 1970's Boston without a Supreme Court Writ!) One of things he taught his grandson was to sort the broken and small left over pieces of tile and marble leftover on the jobs into different shades of color and according to the various type of material - even as minute as some of those pieces were. It all seemed to make a difference to the old man - although no one dared call him that to his face - and it made exactly no difference to the boy but the boy knew better than to open his mouth (most of the time) and sat and did as he was told. As things progressed, and the boy got faster and faster at his sorting. The old man would draw a picture of something - an animal, some sort of shape, some letters - and would have the boy stick the various types of tile and marble into the design onto a piece of plywood. The boy got pretty good at gluing the pieces onto the board into a pattern and continued to go on side jobs with his grandfather passed away in 1979. Fast forward to mid 2016. The boy, now medically retired, was visiting a family friend in the nursing home and was shown a tile river, meadow and hills designed out of random sized ceramic tile hanging off the wall. He remembered his grandfather and the time he spent with the old man - he felt safe calling him 'the old man' after 36 years of the old man not being able to do anything about it since he was dead. A few months after the nursing home visit he met some new friends on the other side of his in-law's family. One of the friends loved Joan Crawford specifically, and Old Hollywood Starlets in general. The now retied boy decided to try his hand at doing a portrait of Joan Crawford for his new friend. The rest, as they say, is history. 'Buddy' has done custom mosaics of faces, (Hollywood Stars, sports figures, rock stars and other famous people), corporate and sport team logos, cartoon characters, signs, symbols and geometric designs provided by customers. So, got an idea for something you'd like done in tile? Please fill out the form and I'll get right back to you! My first official piece went to a very special friend and he and his circle of online friends decided I should go into business doing these custom mosaics, so here I am. He has the first Joan Crawford 20 by 30 inch hanging on his wall. He suggested I do a series of the old Hollywood Starlets and this is what this website will offer. Naturally, the original picture and the finished mosaic look a little different from each other but the finished mosaic is really something to see when finished! I finish each piece off with a basic 3/4 inch pine frame usually painted white.
