I have been making this simple wave mosaic for my rosettes for some years now. I occasionally contemplate changing it to something more elaborate or making copies of historical rosettes but I find myself coming back to it enthused. I think the reason I keep it is all the myriad of things I think about when I think about waves.

I personally think about going to the ocean and staring at the Pacific and being enamored and frightened all at once at the magnitude of the power in front of me. Living in western Oregon, I often drive to the coast where I commonly stop at these vistas many hundreds of feet above the water with a panoramic view of the Pacific where all you see are sets of waves going out to the infinity of the horizon. It gives you the significance of being insignificant. I also think of happily running from the waves on the beach as a kid in Hawaii and then not paying attention and being knocked down and pounded by the oncoming surf. Then, I think about the footage of the tsunami that hit Fukushima. It’s just water, but there is so much of it and it’s always in perpetual motion. It is one of those basic building blocks of life and maybe the defining element of our planet.

I’m making my final wave motif in the bloodwood and blue colors from a layup I made years ago. I think I got about forty rosettes out of that layup. I’ve been making the same wave mosaic with pearwood and green dyed maple. I was am still toying with the ideas of some new rosette designs but I think I will make some more layups of the wave ...maybe in a few different color combinations.

I spent a couple days putting together some more rosettes. Here are some pictures:

I was just told about some of this wonderful artwork that is public domain on the web a few days ago and thought it fits with this post perfectly. It wasn’t the original inspiration for the wave mosaic but it may be inspiration for some future rosette designs.

https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/hamonshu-a-japanese-book-of-wave-and-ripple-designs-1903/