Napa Quake Mosaic

The Napa Quake Mosaic was born from what was broken. After the 2014 Napa Earthquake, neighbors brought me boxes of shattered household items—objects that held their stories and memories. Over eleven years, nearly 2,000 volunteers helped transform this collective damage into a 400-square-foot mosaic installed on a retired railcar in Napa’s Rail Arts District.

This work is repair in its most expansive sense. We didn’t just mend objects; we tended to memory, community, and place through the creative process. Every fragment carries both rupture and resilience, and every hand that placed a piece helped stitch the community back together. The mosaic stands as a testament to how creativity can turn loss into something shared, beautiful, and enduring. At its core, it is an act of communal repair. I made it as a touchstone for locals but also something beautiful for new folks to stumble upon.