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A video in our MASTERS SERIES

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In 2009, we were contracted to remove an exterior Louisiana mosaic and the brick wall to which it was bonded to save the mosaic just ahead of building demolition. The mosaic was given the title Family and was made by Conrad Albrizio of Venetian smalti and variously colored marble. It was installed on the ground floor facade of a children’s mental health facility in Algiers, just outside of New Orleans, Louisiana.

In 2005 this building was irreparably damaged by Hurricane Katrina and in 2009 it was slated for demolition. There was anguish over how to save the mosaic from this demolition. By 2009 enough funds were made available at the last minute from the Louisiana Percent for Art Program – the first time program funds had been used for conservation or preservation work instead of art commissions. McKay Lodge, Inc. was contracted to quickly take the mosaic away from the building. The removed wall, in (13) 400-500 pound sections, was then stored face-down on palettes in a New Orleans warehouse until 2015.

In February, 2015, McKay Lodge, Inc. signed a $258,426.00 contract with the State of Louisiana, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, Office of Cultural Development to detach the mosaic that was still attached to sections of exterior brick wall, mount the mosaic’s Venetian glass tesserae into a new bedding mortar on lightweight modular panels, deliver, re-join and install the entire mosaic as a whole again inside the Capitol Park Museum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

This was our third relocation of a wall mosaic by Louisiana artist Conrad Abrizio. The first relocation was an Albrizio mosaic in the old Mobile County Building in Alabama to a new county facility there. The second Albrizio relocation was from the State Supreme Court building in New Orleans, which was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, to a courthouse in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The mosaics of Conrad Albrizio, of which there are many, do not seem to have had much exposure in print. A 2019 publication from the Louisiana State University Press, The Frescoes of Conrad Albrizio, by Carolyn Bercier, provides just a little information and images on his mosaics in a brief closing chapter.

A 20 minute video was made by McKay Lodge, Inc. of the remounting of the Algiers mosaic Family to accompany the opening celebration of its exhibition in the Baton Rouge state museum: the Capitol Park Museum.

(Video) STANDARD TEST ASTM .357 – Composite Materials Adhesion

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This video makes some fun in presenting what is a serious method we employ for testing our experiments in materials adhesion, particularly the adhesion of mosaic tesserae to the aluminum skins of support panels. We apply the force and shock of fired projectiles into our composite tests.

This video records one of the actual tests for mounting the Algiers, New Orleans mosaic.

Yes, that is a genuine 6 inch .357 Magnum Colt Python (1955-1999) in blued version, while Rick Grime’s signature zombie-killing weapon in the TV series Walking Dead was the same but in the nickel plated version.

Why yes, that is indeed a genuine George Lawrence Company holster (Portland, Oregon 1857-1985).

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