Mia Tavonatti is an award-winning painter and glass mosaic artist. Her personal mission “is to create enduring works of profound beauty that transform and inspire”. This shows how passionate she is about her work and how dedicated she is to making each art her own. For our virtual museum, we aim to bring the world of mosaics back into view and show how beautiful and transforming it is, as well as influence other artists to see how mosaics can be made in several different manners. Her specialty of mosaics is glass, which pieces together to look as if it was painted with brushes. The majority of mosaics she makes are more realism and focused on nature, humans, and a few starring religions. She calls them “representational mosaics”. Her works of art can be found from hotels to parks to the United States Air Force.
Back in college, Tavonatti attended California State University Long Beach and majored in Illustration. She received a Bachelors's and Masters before moving on to study abroad. She traveled to Paris, Italy, and Greece in order to strengthen and expand her skills. The only area that she chose to reside in before her current area, Santa Ana, was Italy. During this time, she was invited to become one of the very few artists who record history through their art - collaborating with the United States Air Force. Per flight, a painting must be made that records what she has seen. In her later life, Tavonatti settled down to become an instructor at the Laguna College of Art + Design. The classes she has taught have made a total of 8 public murals.
One specific collection of her art focuses deeply on her spirit. They portray romance, adventure, ideas, and empowerment. The collection all present a young woman draped over by white sheets or a white dress, while sometimes featuring another man. The majority of them are paintings but a few are mosaics. Tavonatti implores that her art will always have “the depth, the light, and the color for which [she] is known”. She makes sure that her art is always her and that she can be seen through her artworks. If she does not love the piece, then the piece is not hers and will not be a finished art piece.
While her focus is realism with her mosaics, she also has a contemporary mosaic collection on her online portfolio. All five of them seem to deal with water and the froth that comes from the sea. Tavonatti herself has not spoken about the contemporary mosaics she has made, but the pieces seem to come from custom requests rather than her own enjoyment. Her photos are always brightly colored and focus on the highlights of life rather than the downfalls. She wants her pieces to make others feel hope and see the beauty of life.
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