A Meander Pattern in Torrance

A couple of weeks ago I linked to a site describing meander patterns in mosaics. That site was the blog of Lillian Sizemore, a visiting artist at the Getty, and here's the link again.

Meander patterns repeat, turning this way and that. The "Maeander" River in Phrygia (now Turkey) mentioned in the Iliad turned this way and that, doubling back on itself and ... well, meandering all over the place.

Two weeks ago, I had to settle for the picture of a mosaic that had once visited the Getty but was now gone, to present a meander pattern. Silly me! How was I to know that two--not one, but two--lovely examples of meander mosaics were just down the road from where I grew up.

The relatively new welcoming walkway of Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance has obligingly indulged in meandering. They've placed the meander pattern mosaics along the walkway leading to the main entrance of the 51-year-old hospital, which seems to get remodeled or expanded once a decade.

The Beatitudes are also engraved along this walkway. One of the mosaics sits over the well-known prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, and I wonder if a statue is being readied for the center of it. The other circles a statue of Mary Potter, the "Foundress" of the group of nuns who called themselves the Little Company of Mary (Mary the mother of Jesus, not Mary Potter).

Foundress is one of those words that make me giggle inappropriately.

Anyway, the hospital was built after a fundraising campaign gathered half a million dollars to get the construction going. The total cost was $3.5 million, back in 1960.

Here's a Daily Breeze page of the hospital's history.