Manayunk artist Tom Sonnenberg makes beautiful eggshell mosaics. He believes he’s among a small number of people in the United States who practice the art. The technique, he says, originated in China through lacquerware art. People used egg shells to produce a white color; a white pigment was not otherwise available.
He indulged your correspondent by demonstrating and describing the process. First, he actually uses the eggs then bleaches the shells to remove any bacteria. Next, he crushes a piece on a glued surface and with a pin tool moves the the crushed smaller pieces around to create his design. After all the pieces are in place, he paints over it with a flashe medium, then sands it over and applies finishing glazes.
I interviewed Sonnenberg during the 2025 Philadelphia Open Studio Tours and much admired some of his body parts series- prominently a nose and purchased a print of a mosaic of a hand as a memento.
Sonnenberg is also working on a retrospective of artwork he made during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. An event at the William Way Center emphasizing the importance of preserving the history of the crisis was a catalyst for revisiting his artwork.
At the time, people were dying around him. He reflected on a friend who, upon finding out he was HIV positive, slit his wrists. Sonnenberg took a photograph of himself as if were dying and did a performance piece in his home on that theme. He showed a blown up photograph of a hand written letter-he had found in the street. In it, the writer described dying of AIDS. Among the artifacts is also a since-colorized and playful portrait of condoms.
