“Day at the Beach” — San Diego International Airport Mosaic Mural
Smalti glass and tumbled marble
The commission
“Day at the Beach” runs 38 feet along a waiting area in Terminal 1 at San Diego International Airport. It stands 6 feet 6 inches tall, cut by hand in Byzantine glass, vetro smalto and marble, and it has been on that wall since 2005 — the terminal opened around it the year after.
It is the largest and most complex mosaic mural the studio has built. Tracy Sabin drew it. We cut and built it. What follows is how a panel that size is actually made, and what it takes to commission another one.
Design details
Design by Tracy Sabin
Tracy Sabin is a San Diego illustrator and designer whose work runs from logos and lettering to large-scale imagery for public spaces. He drew “Day at the Beach” — the composition, the figures, the color breaks. His work is at tracysabin.com.
We fabricated it. The drawing arrived as artwork and left the studio as 38 feet of cut glass and marble on paper facing, numbered and keyed to a setting layout.
That division is worth stating plainly, because it is how most mosaic mural work at this scale runs: the artist or the architect owns the image, and we own the translation of it into glass — color matching, cutting, where the panels break, and the drawing the setter works from.
Artwork in the Public Space
The San Diego Port Authority commissioned Tracy Sabin for a waiting area in Terminal 1 — something calm and sunlit for people waiting on a flight. His drawing gave it surfers, sailboats, sandcastles, seabirds and a crab, spread across a Pacific horizon. We worked with him to turn it into glass.
A mosaic mural of that length does not travel in one piece. It was built in numbered panels, faced with paper, and shipped flat. A tile contractor set it on site, working to our panel layout and setting guidance. We do not install: we make the piece, and we make the drawing that tells the setter where every section goes.
Done properly the panel joins disappear and the wall reads as one image. That is the whole difficulty of work at this size, and it is settled in the studio months before anything reaches the wall.
Two decades on, it has not faded. Glass does not — the color is inside the material, not printed on it. In a building that sees that much daylight and that much traffic, that is the argument for glass over almost anything else. See the full-size panorama.
About this mural
The “Day at the Beach” mosaic mural is 38 feet by 6 feet 6 inches, cut by hand in Byzantine glass (smalti), vetro smalto (vitreous glass) and marble. It was commissioned in November 2004 on a 120-day build, set in 2005, and Terminal 1 opened around it in 2006. It remains the clearest example of what permanent public art in glass can do in a high-traffic building.
Commission a mosaic mural
If you are specifying for a client — a lobby, a hotel, a public building — start at our For Designers page, which carries the material and lead-time detail a spec needs.
Otherwise, send dimensions and a reference image and we will tell you what it costs. Hand-cut work suits figures and fine detail. Grid work suits borders, gradients and large fields, and it costs less; most projects use both. If a design comes back too expensive in smalti, ask for it in Venetian glass — it is usually the difference between a project happening and not.
Lead time is 3–6 weeks for smaller pieces and 6–16 weeks for larger ones — the airport mural, at 38 feet, was a 120-day build. The finished work ships paper-faced in numbered sections and is set by your tile contractor. We have built mosaic murals at every size, from the Gorski bird sanctuary to this one. View our full mosaic artwork gallery for more.
Begin your commission
Send the details of your project, or call (323) 389-5347. Studio hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and Saturday, 9am to 1pm, Pacific.