THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 26, 1995 TAG: 9505240236
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: P04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JEAN GEDDES, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
While Brenda Kruglick's friends are off shopping at the malls, she's scouting thrift shops and yard sales looking for old china plates, used tables, chairs, lamp bases and vases.
The next time anyone sees her ``junk'' it's become a work of art.
``Everything is something else,'' said Kruglick, whose consuming hobby is creating mosaic designs on furniture, frames, lamps and boxes.
When she makes her yard sale finds, ``I take them home, make up designs and turn them into mosaic pieces,'' she said.
``I used to create doll houses and it was one day while I was using tiny tiles to cover a doll house roof that I became fascinated with the tiles.''
After that she experimented more and more, first covering a box with black and white mosaic designs, then a chessboard and from then on she was hooked.
``I knew this would be my hobby from now on,'' she said. ``It was so consuming that I'd wake up in the morning with ideas and feel badly that I only had about 12 hours each day to work with the tiles.''
She spends so much time on her work, she said she feels a pang of regret each time she sells a piece.
She is mostly self taught, for she could find only one book about her hobby. There's been a lot of trial and error.
Now, after three years she has created such pieces as a desk and chair set, a large bar with a martini glass - complete with an olive - bar stools, several pictures, lamps, a table with the profile of her husband in mosaic design and more recently a wooden bedstead with ``up and at 'em'' worked across the headboard.
``That idea came to me in a dream,'' she said as she walked around her Lynnhaven River area home's garage, which currently serves as her studio.
``We are going to turn the room over the garage soon into a studio for me. I'm sure it will make my husband happy to have this space free again.''
Working with mosaics is basically easy, she explained. ``I break up china pieces, such as plates, saucers, which I usually find at yard sales or thrift shops, then I sketch out my design, lay the tiles on the piece I'm working on and glue them to it.
``After it dries, I rub grout over the entire surface with my hands and let it set. Finally I rub off the grout and it stays between the tiles.''
The bar was one of her most challenging projects.
``I found the bar at a thrift shop for sale for $100. I imagined what it would look like in mosaic tile, but as it was covered with old Formica and vinyl I knew the work involved so I waited until it went on sale for $40 - then bought it.''
Today the bar and stools are a focal point in the sun room.
``I find it so exciting, the possibilities as to what you can do with mosaics are limitless. I can look at the most disreputable looking piece and visualize it as something beautiful. That's why I say to myself: `Everything is something else.' ''
When not working on her hobby, Kruglick keeps busy three days a week as a flight attendant with USAir, a position she has held for the past 14 years.
For 17 years she has done volunteer work with abused children. ``I feel this work is my way of making a contribution to life.
``My father used to say, `Lose yourself and you find everything.' ''
She is married to Robert Kruglick, owner of Scott Distributing Co. in Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by STEVE EARLEY
``I can look at the most disreputable looking piece and visualize it
as something beautiful,'' says Brenda Kruglick.
This bar, purchased for $40 from a thrift shop and covered in tile,
was one of her most challenging projects, Brenda Kruglick says.
Brenda Kruglick turned the top of this bargain table into a mosaic
of a human profile.
by CNB