Mount Rainier artist finds beauty in courthouse’s copper

‘‘Isn’t that gorgeous?” she asked, examining it in the sunlight.

To the untrained eye, the quick answer would be ‘‘no.” But Theberge, 38, sees potential and beauty in the sheet of rusted metal.

After the Upper Marlboro Courthouse caught fire in 2004, Theberge salvaged the copper sheets from its roof and turned them into a sparkling glass-and-copper mosaic. She dedicated the 12-by-5-foot mural last week at the Prince George’s Correctional Center in Upper Marlboro, where it hangs in the lobby. The June 18 ceremony came as officials prepared to celebrate the new copper dome atop the rebuilt courthouse.

What’s old is new again.

‘‘I wanted something optimistic,” Theberge said as she described her piece, which depicts the resurgence of shad fish in the Anacostia River. She was inspired to create the mosaic after reading a book about shad by John McPhee and taking a tour of the Anacostia waterways.

‘‘It’s just a humanistic, hopeful theme – about [how] people can transform,” she said.

Theberge, who works exclusively with mosaics, specializes in making something from nothing. She is one of the many local artists in the vibrant Mount Rainier area and has applied a lifetime of art education and experience that has spanned the globe to projects in Prince George’s County.

Her basement studio in Mount Rainier is filled with jars of tiny squares of multi-colored glass tiles, which she diligently cuts, shapes and glues onto white mesh until a pattern emerges that means something to her.

It’s a sloppy process. As she and her partner Shahin Shikhaliyev worked on another mosaic for the new Brentwood Arts Center last week, her Dalmatian Logan trotted across it freely. Whenever she moves the wall-sized murals, pieces flake off. But she doesn’t mind.

‘‘It’s a lot of cutting and fitting together. It’s like a giant puzzle, but you have to make the pieces,” she said.

She recently completed a mosaic for the Prince George’s Animal Management Facility in Upper Marlboro. The piece shows a dog and cat in a pose she hopes will elicit sympathy from residents thinking of adopting a pet.

Theberge sells most of her pieces, but those she doesn’t are scattered throughout her house. She has a mosaic coffee table and mirror in her living room, and even a blue-and-green mosaic address sign displayed on her porch.

Theberge came to Mount Rainier four years ago, after studying art extensively in the Far East. She spent two years in China, then another six years in Hong Kong, working for a private company and creating pieces for the Hong Kong government. She moved on to Tamil Nadu in southern India, where she worked pro bono on a mural for a children’s center.

‘‘I always like to do more training,” she said.

She plans to spend the summer studying in Philadelphia, but she’s still creating work for Prince George’s County, much to the delight of her fans.

‘‘It’s really beautiful,” said Vicki Duncan, spokeswoman at the Department of Corrections, of Theberge’s recent Anacostia mural. ‘‘It’s just exquisite. I look at it all the time.”

Lauren Dugas Glover, director of the county’s Art in Public Places Program, which commissioned the jailhouse art, said she marvels at the research and thought behind each of Theberge’s pieces. Theberge and her assistants spent more than 400 hours making the Anacostia mural.

‘‘It’s like a painting on the wall. She is so meticulous in her work,” Glover said. ‘‘You don’t feel like you’re looking at glass tiles ... you feel as if you’re sitting by the water’s edge.”

E-mail Judson Berger at jberger@gazette.net.