Origins of the Pendle Hill mosaic

The tile mosaic was created to fulfill a Resident Program term paper requirement at Pendle Hill in 1965-66. My wife June, on a hike in Gwynedd Valley with our friend Shirley Frederickson, had found an old tile dump with brilliantly colored tiles and brought some back as a gift for me.

Like the best at Pendle Hill, the mosaic ended up being a community project. Vladimir Tamari, a  Palestinian artist who was a resident student at that time, sketched the Pendle Hill logo on a piece of exterior ¾” plywood.  I spent the winter weeks cutting and gluing tile pieces until the design was complete.  I had never grouted tiles in my life, so Dan Wilson, my study advisor, showed me how to grout the spaces. Finally, Walter Smalakis, another student who was a professional woodworker, made a beautiful redwood frame to protect the edges of the plywood from the weather, and the completed mosaic was secured to the wall just outside of Chace.

The tile mosaic still serves me as a metaphor of the coming together of all of God’s people in this sacred and holy place.

For a more detailed version of this story, please contact Harold Confer at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .