Although Virginia Gardner built a thriving real estate business that lasted decades, she has always had a creative voice inside of her. Gardner earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1979 and spent a few years as a professional arts administrator before her lengthy career in real estate. She has now returned to her artistic roots, creating small pieces of artwork as well as large-scale mosaic murals.

Primarily a mosaic artist, Gardner’s early work was part of an attempt to “make the materials do things they wouldn’t do naturally” as she tried to make hard ceramics and glass seem flowing. In time, she developed a technique that results in artwork that moves with the eye, utilizing ceramics while including other textural materials such as stained glass, millefiori, broken china, and found objects to create a fluid image. As she often allows pieces of these varied materials to guide her creative flow, Gardner’s artistic process is often random and spontaneous. Sometimes she is inspired by a single piece of china or stained glass, building the rest of the artwork around it, although other times she starts with an image in mind and molds the pieces to create that. Gardner explains that while her studio in Charlottesville, Virginia may appear to be chaotic as it is filled with kitsch, ceramics, glass, and a wall of rocks, stones, and crystals, these are the materials that inspire and make up her remarkable mosaics. With a style of “prismatic synthesis,” Gardner creates functional and decorative mosaic art to adorn your home and your garden.