Making mosaics ‘goes a lot deeper than breaking glass and putting it together

It’s tough to make a mosaic that will last. But the Chicago Mosaic School, founded and run by Karen Ami, is working on that.

Ami worked with ceramics for years. She says she learned the proper way to make a mosaic — art in which the images are created with bits of glass, marble or other materials. She spent time in Italy to perfect her technique after seeing what she says was too much shoddy mosaic work in the United States.

“The work that I saw being done was falling apart,” Ami says, “while mosaics from Pompeii and Rome were upheld.”