Luis first came across Piece by Piece at the Central Avenue Jazz Fest. “I had always been interested in mosaics,” he says. “I just never had the opportunity to come in contact with it or take any classes.”
About a year later, Luis M. is a certified Piece by Piece artist with his own collection in the shop: one-of-a-kind mosaics made from glass and recycled materials.
For Luis, discovering mosaic art was like finding “another sense I had in me that I didn’t know I possessed.” As he puts it, “I’ve entered a zone, this other world, that has given me a different way to express myself.”
Born and raised in Los Angeles by his mother, an immigrant from El Salvador, Luis has lived many lives. He studied industrial technology through the graduate level, served as a community advocate in a gang intervention program, helped train the next generation of STEM educators, conducted research in aerospace, and worked as a fabricator on public art projects for Ball Nogues Studio.
His first piece, made in a class at the Piece by Piece studio, was a sun design that, in his words, “ended up looking like a turtle.” He fell in love with the art form anyway, and spent the next year learning the process behind it. He is quick to credit the people around him. “I feel that within this short amount of time, I’ve been able to develop and grow a lot because of the peers and support I have from everyone around me.”
Mosaic has also been part of Luis’s healing, including his recovery from addiction. He describes it as playing “a vital role in my wellness journey, offering a powerful space for meditation, patience, and transformation.” He sees his own story in the work itself: “The physical act of assembling a mosaic mirrors my own life: taking disconnected, distorted chapters from my past and rearranging them into a beautiful, purposeful future.”
His designs draw on his life experiences, his community, his fellow artists, the city around him, the injustices he has witnessed, and time in nature. “Looking at every life form, from flowers to birds, it really gives my designs inspiration,” he says. He also points to a local influence: Millard Sheets, the 20th-century mural and mosaic artist and a pioneer of the California Scene Painting movement.
Piece by Piece is an employment social enterprise, not just a marketplace. Artists are trained through free mosaic workshops, and their work is sold directly through the Piece by Piece shop. Buying one of Luis’s pieces directly supports him as an artist, and he earns an income through his own creativity.
Shop Luis’s collection.
Learn more about Luis on his artist page.
Please consider supporting the free Piece by Piece mosaic workshops. A donation helps local artists learn skills, overcome barriers, and build a community of creatives. Donate Today!
Luis summed up what the studio means to him: “I’m just super grateful … that I can come here, be myself, express myself, and most importantly, create. It gives opportunities for artists that don’t have the resources to be able to come create and design.” That is exactly what the studio is for.
