'Just Desserts' Features Novi Artist

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Did someone say dessert?

Yes, Ruth Tyszka did. The Bloomfield Hills resident is among three artists featured in “Just Desserts,” which runs Oct. 25-Dec. 10 at the Janice Charach Gallery in West Bloomfield. The gallery is located in the Jewish Community Center at 6600 W. Road.

The exhibit, which opens at a free 1-4 p.m reception on Sunday, Oct. 25, explores the role of desserts in everyday life.

In an interview with the Birmingham Eccentric, the mosaic artist said that when she and two other artists featured in the exhibit — Darcel Deneau, of Novi, and Joan Schwartz, of Huntington Woods — began planning the exhibit, they identified several areas in which desserts have universal appeal and are a common denominator.

“We use desserts to celebrate everything from recurring events, like birthdays, to major celebrations and milestones,” Tyszka said. “We share desserts. We also have some tension with desserts – should I or shouldn’t I indulge? And they are a way to treat ourselves and others.”

When she’s not creating things, Tyszka is a federal law clerk with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. She also is an accomplished guitarist who has performed with several local bands that cover Motown and Top 40 hits.

In a Q&A with the Birmingham Eccentric. Tyszka said she got hooked on mosaics while taking a stained glass class, which she’d enrolled in to learn to make windows as part of a home renovation project.

“I never made the windows but I was hooked on the material,” she said. “Around the same time, I became obsessed with a mosaic book that my brother gave me — I think I memorized every image in it. I then took a mosaic class and I was drawn to mosaics right away. I liked the functionality of it and also the ability to improvise with the design and materials. It seemed less rigid than stained glass.”

She studied the art of mosaics with Brenda Supuwood at Universal Stained Glass in Oak Park, the Chicago Mosaic School, the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center and the American Society of Mosaic Artists.

She also studied sculpture and armatures at Sherry Warner Hunter’s studio in Tennessee, as well as contemporary mosaic at Koko Mosaico and mosaic restoration with Luciana Notturni at Mosaic Art School, both in Ravenna, Italy.