The Heart of Lismore has extended to mosaics, with hundreds being made by Australians all around the country in a show of support, and some international artists even getting involved.

Brad Lane, is the brains behind the idea. He was influenced by the heart flags all over Lismore, originally an idea that sprung from the 2017 floods to represent the heart of our community, still beating, still strong, to give people hope during flood recovery.

Brad started this project 3 months ago. What is even more curious, is that Brad had only ever attended one mosaic course and created one mosaic previously, a gift his wife Clare had given him for a special occasion. The second mosaic ever created was a heart after the March 2022 floods. 

So far Brad says “I’ve received 129, coming from Perth, Tassie, every state and territory, there are another two on their way from California, and many others from around the country too.”

Brad, clearly an ideas man, then said he decided to put a post up on some Facebook mosaic pages, not knowing what kind or response he would get. 

“I made an A4 and A3 template for people, put it online on the Facebook groups, I was thinking more logically than creatively, but then some people started to ask if they could alter that”. Brad chose to let them exercise their artistic freedom.

“One came back that was made out of freshwater pearls, one came back that was a pendant necklace, one was a Lazy Susan, some were heart shaped, all manner of colours and styles and everything”.

Brad shared some details of some of the artists (whose work is pictured), such as Julie Poole - From Tasmania, a former Northern Rivers resident, Ali Smith - from West Australia who drove her pieces all the way here and Jess who lives in Lismore Heights and made the kintsugi heart.

Kintsugi is a Japanese practise which takes a broken vase or piece of ceramic, and with the use of gold, joins the pieces back together, to show the strength and beauty that comes from moments that break us, making us even better than before. In her piece, the outside tiles went through the flood and were donated by Northern Rivers Tiles and Mosaics and the ceramic pieces for the heart were donated by Brooke Jenkins ceramics, also local.

Anne Baillie's group from the Shoalhaven on the south coast, made 7 mosaics. Anne made her mosaic to donate to the Lismore Catholic Parish office. Her Uncle was a Bishop in Lismore for 30yrs (1971-2001). Christine McGrath, no longer living here, but grew up in Lismore also wanted to help. One of hers is now in the office at St Carthage's where she went to school.

Brad said "Once I hit around 30, I decided it was time to start the distribution process". 

“I spoke to Rebecca Ryan, because she had done such a great job taking on the heart banner concept and initially she supported them being given out, but then when it got bigger I realised I would need to take that on, and create a system around it”.

Brad said “I knew I would have more demand than supply. A mosaic takes a bit of time to create, so I decided a random prize draw was the way to go, with participants just giving a name and number, no need for 20 questions”.

Brad decided to allow the winners to go and pick their piece of art once drawn, a piece that speaks to them. He said “I wanted to give them a chance to be masters of their own destiny, rather than choosing something for them. I wanted to be sensitive to that”. 

We asked Brad ‘what’s the plan from here?’- “I don’t know that I’ve had a plan anywhere along the way!” Brad laughed.

He shared a special art project he would like to create later down the track, one we will check in with him about later down the track. 

In the meantime, you can see some of the mosaics at 177 Keen St, where Brad says “Joy and Ray at the tile shop have been very generous having the Mosaics there”.