Come on over and meet Steffany Tribou!

Today, I wanted to introduce you all to Steffany Tribou... just one of our many wonderful PieceMakers! Enjoy reading about her & checking out some of her work. Be sure to head over to her Etsy Shop to see more!

My name is Steffany Tribou, and my etsy shop name is Tribou Mosaics. 

I have been mosaicing for about a year and a half. It all started with a dream to mosaic my basement stairs, so one day, at a yard sale, I found a wooden footstool for $1, and I bought it. At the next yard sale that day, I bought a broken ceramic fish wall hanging for 25 cents. I bought a few more tiles at our local hardware store, and my fish stool became my first mosaiced piece. I taught myself the process on YouTube. From there, my next project became my basement stairs! I drew a rough plan for waves on the particle board staircase, then I just started gluing away! Two weeks later, my stairs were done. I even incorporated a few ceramic pieces from a local store called the “Lucky Dog Gallery.” I told the owner that I was using them to put in a mosaic on my stairs. I thought nothing else of it until a year later when I went back to the gallery to talk with the owners. At that point, I had 20 mosaiced pieces of my own that I wanted to put in the gallery. They did not have a mosaic artist yet, and I showed them my pieces as well as the stairs. They were so impressed that they took all twenty pieces and asked for more!

I love to paint, but it is not as forgiving as mosaics. If I choose the wrong shape while mosaicing, I can just take it out and replace it until I am happy with the piece…the same does not work with paint! I also play the piano, which I find very relaxing.

I started selling my work about 8 months ago in June. It is in the “Lucky Dog Gallery.” I have sold at least one piece each month, and during the busy season, I sold up to five per month. I also entered into the Lobster Festival Art Show and won the top prize for the best representation of the festival theme for my piece called “Crustacean Sustentation.” This included a ribbon, an award, and $100. I also won first place ribbons at the Maine Blueberry Festival for my Blueberry Lamp and my “Key of Sea” Guitar. In the fall, my “Crustacean Sustentation” piece was at the River Gallery in Damariscotta in a show called “Tools of the Trade.”

My dream is to do a commissioned staircase. I loved the whole process of working on my stairs, and I feel like I have learned so much about mosaicing just through the process of trial and error that I would love to do another staircase in someone’s home to showcase my work. Each time they walk up the stairs they would be able to appreciate my art. 

I am a Nationally Board Certified Teacher in English Language Arts. I started a Literacy Initiative in my school, and through this, I have become the Literacy Coordinator in which I have structured a curriculum and courses for students who need extra assistance with reading and writing at the high school level. In addition to this, I work with teachers in all content areas to assist them in incorporating reading and writing strategies into their classes. I am very passionate about this work, but there are some days when I cannot see the progress, or the big picture becomes blurred with the daily minutia. Mosaicing allows me to gain the satisfaction of seeing short-term immediate progress, and it allows me use my hands to create, which is something that is missing from my career.

I live on the coast of Maine with my wonderful husband and my chocolate lab named Lucy, and my home is two houses down from where I grew up. I teach at the same school in which I graduated from, and I have come to appreciate and love everything that I used to despise about my small coastal town. I am proud to live here, and this is reflected in each piece that I have made. Every single mosaic that I have ever created is linked in some way to the ocean. I especially love incorporating sailboats into my mosaics. 

I became a member of the Piecemakers in August 2011, and it is the best group! The atmosphere is encouraging and inspiring. I particularly enjoy the challenges as well as the group piece (the Surfboard) in which we contributed. We also have done swaps, where we get to hold, admire, and keep a beautiful piece of art from our friends in this group. When school started this year, I was busier than ever, and thought I would need to put an end to my mosaicing until next summer, but this group has inspired me to keep going! I use my weekends and any free time to create.

.