Zodiac Floor Mural, Custom Design

Last year, I received a very panicked phone call from a man named Tom Voustas. He had a booming voice and a thick Greek accent. “I want the Zodiac Wheel,” he said, “on a tile floor. I am opening a new diner. I can’t find this anywhere; can you help me? I have looked everywhere and I am about to give up. Can you do this?”

I told him yes, and he made me repeat that word three times because he thought he heard me wrong. A long pause. “I don’t believe it,” he said, but the happiness in his voice told me he did. “I’ve been looking at mural places for four weeks,” he said. “I can’t believe it. Nobody has this, nobody could help me.”

It was not going to be a run-of-the-mill diner, he explained, but a very trendy, upscale restaurant that happened to be a diner. The decor was going to be much more elegant than the usual fare; sorta like the Terminal Diner (which may or may not still be on Eleventh Avenue in Chelsea in Manhattan), a really funky art deco 24-hour indoor and outdoor diner. (One of my husband’s favorite haunts when we first got married.)

I designed a Zodiac Wheel for Tom, and we had it printed on 12″ square porcelain tile. The mural measures five feet in diameter. Since it was a circle, it had to be carefully cut to install on the floor, and it also had to be tempered to handle foot traffic. Once the design was approved, we ordered special tile for him and warned him that he had to go to a professional porcelain cutter, or he risked ruining the tiles.

I just got an email this morning from a photographer, sent from Tom, with the below photo attached. As you can see from the photo, they did a fabulous job installing the floor tile mural. “You come to American Dream diner for ten free meals!” Tom told me not too long ago. I think my husband and I might take him up on it. I haven’t had a decent gyro since I left New York City eleven years ago.