Exquisite Art Piece by Tiny Piece

June 2025, by Diane Sulg

Brenda Pokorny lives in Mooresville, North Carolina, and simultaneously in a world of tiny glass pieces that she transforms into amazing mosaics. Many are large installations in fabulous homes, some are framed mandalas, and the most beautiful become pieces of furniture and even public art. 

Brenda grew up in Ohio and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in textile design from Miami of Ohio. For many years, she worked with a design company making wall coverings and then eventually owned her own successful textile studio for 10 years. 

Soon married with three young sons, the family loved to travel. Their home reflected both Benda’s art background and the influence of many cultures. 

One day in a shop, Brenda spotted an unfinished coffee table. Remembering the mosaics she had seen, Brenda decided she would try her hand covering it with small glass tiles. When she went to buy the glass tiles, she felt like a child in a candy store — she was in love! 

Largely self-taught, Brenda bought books about mosaic art, took a few courses, and kept experimenting. Since she is so enthusiastic about color, she found stained glass offered her pieces more excitement than ceramics, although she occasionally uses them as well. 

She searched for the perfect substrates to hold her designs. Within a brief time, she was ready to mosaic just about anything. Brenda said she has so many ideas in her head, she just had to get them out! 

As her work progressed, she was often asked to make commission pieces. One of the earliest was a superhero garden bench as a memorial for parents who had lost their young son. Brenda was nervous about their reaction, but when they told her it was “the first bit of joy in the two years since he had died,” Brenda realized her mosaics could be inspirations. 

The bench pictured in this article is titled “Full Bloom.” To give you an idea of the process, it took Brenda about six weeks to build the armature, which was a steel fabrication, then a layer of Styrofoam carved with a hot wire and covered with concrete slurry. 

When that is completed, the real work begins. It involves another six weeks cutting and grinding hundreds of glass pieces, fitting them into the design, and adding the mortar. 

Not all of Brenda’s pieces are this enormous. She has produced mosaic birdbaths, garden steppingstones, and even signs that embellish public buildings. 

She loves the challenge of commissions. The Christian Mission in Mooresville is celebrating its new headquarters, and Brenda is currently designing and building a multi-dimensional sphere for its prayer garden. 

While she loves the challenge of these intricate pieces, she also enjoys creating mandalas that are more geometric and symbolic. With these, Brenda can relax and get in the zone feeling that the pieces flow automatically into the repeating pattern. 

See her work at brendapokornymosaics.com and admire the enormous number of products that feature her mosaic patterns. One of her newest products is a children’s book, This Is My Garden. She wrote and illustrated many of these books for her young boys years ago and looks forward to publishing more of them soon. 

If you ask Brenda if she has any special feeling about her successful art career, she always says, “Gratitude.” She is grateful her husband, Jim, has always supported her work and even built a separate studio for her work. 

She is grateful for the local art community. And, of course, she is grateful for all the customers who love her work and inspire her to create more beautiful mosaics! 

Diane Sulg is executive director of CRAFT and founder & co-chair of American Craft Week (ACW). She is a handmade advocate who provides valuable information in her one-day seminars at wholesale shows throughout the United States. She can be reached at dianesulg@gmail.com.