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I fell in love with mosaicing about 10 years ago.
One of the many things that I do in the community apart from
sport, working at schools, Eid activities, supporting
mosques, has been to run some workshops that enable people
from different cultures and faiths to come together and be
united through the beauty of mosaic.
I'm a self-taught artist.
I haven't learned from anyone professionally.
And in fact, my very first mosaic was just after the
tsunami and it was a memorial to everybody
who had passed away.
Hi, my name is Anisa Sharif.
I'm an Australian Muslim.
I've worked with the Australian Federal Police for
three years.
We work with cultural and linguistically diverse
communities.
I have a terrific passion for Islamic art and it has been a
huge influence in my life.
It's actually believed that the very first person who
discovered coloured glass was a Muslim
brother called Ibn Firnas.
So it was actually Muslims who built the very first stained
glass factory for the Christians.
And the Christians took the stained glass and began to
make beautiful, inspiring stained glass windows.
But Muslims focused more on the use of tile.
And their tiles became more and more decorative.
Before someone can pray they must do wudu, which means that
they must cleanse themselves and be clean before they can
enter the mosque.
So in many of the oldest mosques in the world there
will be fountains outside and the fountains will have
beautiful decorative tiles and clean running water where
people can wash themselves before they enter.
As a result of this most really large mosques in the
world now have beautiful fountains and amazing ponds
filled with crystal clear water.
So there is a great affiliation between water and
Islamic tiles.
I like to use old Islamic tiles that are broken and that
have been discarded and make water ponds.
For me there is a tremendous beauty in seeing a pond with
Islamic tile in it, and the water.
And the connection of being clean before you pray to God
and just the sense of purity that comes with the beauty
that is water.
The use of the tree of life, not only in the Islamic faith
but in all religions, has been continuous
since the dawn of mankind.
It seems to be an ongoing belief that the tree of life
very much represents not only the journey of mankind but
many nations, one humanity, the differences of so many
colours in humanity.
It also talks about the grounding of faith, reaching
up into the heavens.
One of the main reasons that I really like to inspire young
people to become more involved with Islamic art is if you
walk into any place of worship anywhere in the globe and it's
stunning, the first thing that you will say is, oh my God.
And those three words straightaway inspire you to
think of the Creator.
If someone is interested in learning how to mosaic, you
can actually buy small cut glass mosaic tiles.
If you've decided that you wanted to make some shapes
with these, you can buy these barrel cutters and you can
just snip them in half.
The boxes come in sizes and shapes like this but you can
also get smaller versions of the tiles.
Getting more advanced, you can use a glass cutter.
They have a small roller head which is a bit
like a pizza cutter.
You know how a pizza cutter has a big roller.
So they're not sharp to work with and they don't actually
cut the glass.
They actually score the glass, which means they put a line in
the glass, a scratch, which compromises the surface
integrity of the glass.
So once the score line is there you can
then snap the glass.
I've also found that working with crockery is great.
If you have a piece of crockery that has tremendous
sentimental value, might have been your grandmother's or
your mother, and all you've got left is one piece and you
can't use it anymore--
they are fantastic to work with and a lot of fun.
And you can also just cut those with that.
You can use a hammer but I still recommend that you use
the cutters.
They're so much safer.
A lot of people are actually now gluing the tea cups to the
saucers and attaching a stand and sitting
them in their garden.
And there's a lot of people now really becoming very
sentimental and using those types of
things in their gardens.
It's a lot of fun for the kids as well.
So for me, I really want young people to think about
And also continuing on with the legacy that's been left
decorating places of worship.
with all of the ancient artisans who in many cases
were uneducated and worked tirelessly, very long days,
decorating places of worship so that hundreds of years
later we still walk into those places now and say, oh my God.
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