Will Towns

With the swipe of his fingers, Will Towns finds inspiration under grout.

As he works on planks of 3/4-inch plywood covered with 12 to 15 pounds of wet grout, tile letters begin to appear. When each letter is lovingly and carefully uncovered, a Bible verse is unveiled.

Since beginning his craft just over a year ago, the tile artist who works out of his Graysville, Ga., home has completed about 60 pieces. He also has done two works of mosaic glass art.

“It’s clear he’s got a natural talent and gift for interpreting what God want him to put down visually,” said the Rev. John Page, pastor of Graysville United Methodist Church, where Mr. Towns’ first mosaic glass art work hangs in the fellowship hall.

Mr. Towns, a 2003 University of Tennessee at Chattanooga graduate with a degree in human services, has no art training. He simply woke up one morning, he said, with an idea that would put his long-harbored interest in art to use.

“It was odd,” he said. “The idea just came to me.”

The concept was to create letters out of quarter-inch ceramic floor tiles and use them to spell out Bible verses on a plank of wood.

His inspiration, though the final product did not resemble it, was a picture of a tree of life.

The Bible verses he uses — rarely the same one twice — are reminders of the Christian church and religion in which he was raised, Mr. Towns, 29, said.

“These mean more to me (than any clever witticisms),” he said. “I’ve grown up around them. I’ve turned to them.”

His favorite, Mr. Towns said, is 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now abide faith, hope and love, these three: but the greatest of these is love.”

All of the ones he uses, he said, are “traditional verses expressing love, faith and hope as visualized in your life.”

Mr. Towns favors letting the verses he chooses and the designs he interprets stand alone, but he has done a few custom pieces for close friends.

Mr. Towns said he gave his first piece of mosaic glass — a 30-inch by 50-inch work in earth tones with depictions of the cross, the trinity, a halo and letters of the alpha and the omega — to Graysville UMC, where he was raised.

It was, he said, a way of giving back for what he had been given.

“It’s a gorgeous piece,” said Mr. Page. “I am amazed it was one of his first tries at doing mosaics. It’s a very tedious kind of art, anyway. But his attention to detail is astounding.”

The mosaic glass work and another similar to it on display at Bates Florist on East Brainerd Road each contains around 5,000 glass tiles.

The investment of glass itself, including tiles of mottled Van Gogh glass, is about $450.

Mr. Towns begins his ceramic art pieces with a pre-cut plank of wood — he uses different dimensions depending on the length of the verse.

After lining off the board to plan the placement of the letters, he cuts the letters from a variety of earth-tone ceramic tiles with a wet saw and glues them to the board. He then pours the grout — which may be dyed in various colors — over the entire surface and wipes it smooth while uncovering the letters of the verse.

Mr. Towns said the ceramic glass works take around six hours, without drying time, to complete. The glass mosaics take two to three months, he said.

Nancy Poston, the artist’s aunt, said she had been an art major in college, loved art and collected art. However, she was “a little bit of a skeptic” before she saw her nephew’s work.

“I was blown away,” she said. “It comes from the heart. A true artist doesn’t work from anything other than what’s in his head and his heart. This is true art.”

Ms. Poston said she has bought three of Mr. Towns’ ceramic pieces, one for her home and two to give to friends.

“Yes, he’s my nephew and I love him,” she said, “but if I had seen them (and he was no relation), I would have bought them.”

He has sold about a quarter of his ceramic pieces but has yet to place them in a particular store or gallery. The more he sells, the more glass mosaic pieces he’ll be able to make, he said.

“Eventually, they’ll find the right eyes,” Mr. Towns said.

In the meantime, he picks up work here and there with some of his friends and lives sparingly near several of his relatives. Although he worked for a year as a program manager at the Boys’ and Girls’ Club of Chattanooga, he wants to give his art plenty of time to percolate.

“I wanted to ... see if I’m good at it,” Mr. Towns said. “I knew I could do it.”

WHOM TO CONTACT

To inquire further about Mr. Towns’ artwork, e-mail him at tdirom3@yahoo.com or call 785-7223.