Millennium Mosaic

See us making our tiles

As part of a project to make the front of the museum look beautiful, a mosaic was planned to celebrate the arrival of the year 2000. The tiles represent the past, present and future of Motueka. It took 18 months to make all the tiles.
	At the centre of the mosaic is a weka. This is because the real name for Motueka is Motu Weka or Island of Weka. Weka collect treasure for their nests and lots of people brought along treasures to put in the mosaic weka's nest.
	Children, parents and grandparents made clay tiles of their hands and feet, or of leaves and other items from nature.
We tried making a tile. We made a slab from clay. We made patterns on the clay or pressed in things that were special to us. We copied some of the museum mosaic patterns.
	The tiles took a long time to dry but looked really good when we finished.