Modern in Murano: The Sisters Sent
When Venice was an island of wooden structures in the thirteenth century, glassmakers were confined to the neighboring island of Murano. Because of the threat of fire, it was too dangerous to allow them to remain in Venice. The foundries moved in 1291, all the better to isolate the craft and the artisans that revolutionized [...]
Karen Thompson: Flora and Fauna
Butterfly Be very careful if you decide to embark on a DIY project. It could change your life forever. In 1987, fashion designer Karen Thompson was restoring her home and taught herself the ancient craft of mosaics. It became her career, replacing fabric and buttons with ceramic and glass. Working with a vast range of [...]
Ilana Shafir: Spontaneous Mosaics
Mosaic Garden and House. Born in the city of Sarajevo in 1924, now the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ilana Shafir knew from an early age she was an artist, though her parents were less than enthusiastic. As Shafir remembers, "In those days to be an artist was not a proper career choice for a [...]
Mark Bulwinkle: Tile Stripped Bare
The Vacationers. At first glance the artistic world of Mark Bulwinkle appears happy. Animals cavort, flowers bloom, a boy has hearts for eyes, the sun shines. The cartoon like images seem to be laughing at us, as if there is some private joke incised into each of them. Upon closer inspection, an energy emerges with [...]
Jacqueline Moore: A Painter’s Tale in Tile
Portuguese Tile An art history scholar and painter, in 2009 Jacqueline Moore found herself “anxious, afraid, stunted in creativity and at a crossroads.” The journey that began in England and had brought her to Southern California, led one afternoon to a garden in Montecito. She was strolling amidst lush plantings, breathing air fresh from a [...]
ALSIO Design, LLC: Spatial Patterns
Visualization of Proposal for the MTA. Bobby Silverman thought he wanted to be a social geographer, the study of spatial patterns, investigating how and why we live and work where we do. On the way to getting his degree, he took a detour to Japan. There he witnessed the daily use of beautiful handcrafted objects, [...]
Art of Board: From Tailslide to Tile
Art of Board Kitchen Backsplash (detail) – tiles cut from old, discarded skateboards. Scratched, dented, smashed, and abused, what to do with skateboard relics that are too damaged to carry their intrepid riders? Rich Moorhead appreciated the dense 7-ply laminated maple, the graffiti inspired graphics, and turned up tails. Where others saw broken sports equipment [...]
Marie Gibbons: Tactile Memory Tile
Installation: “Natural Desire to Climb” Jack and the Beanstalk could do worse than to depend on the “Natural Desire to Climb” series of tile by Marie Gibbons to reach his lofty treasure. Inspired by the exhibit titled Ladders, for which the series was intended, the 5” square sgaffito tiles offer a toehold into the imaginative [...]
Susan Tunick: The Color of Clay
Ceramic artist Susan Tunick has a penchant for scale and surface. All of her creations, site-specific sculptures, mosaic murals and individual bricks and tiles are testaments to architecture. The surfaces are intricately laced, lush in color and texture. Studying architectural ornamentation has given Tunick a heightened awareness of edges, shadows and context-both physical and historical. [...]
Bella Vista Tile: Material Alchemy
“Cascade Dream”. Lisa TeviaClark has immersed herself in the material language of her medium. For the past thirty years she has experimented with clay and the alchemy of heat, salt, ash, minerals, and glazes. With her husband James Clark, she established Bella Vista Tile in 2003, as both a limited production studio and a [...]
The Bearable Lightness of Being: Jasna Sokolovic
“Two Birds in Cherry Tree” Jasna Sokolovic left her native Yugoslavia in 1994, venturing to Granville Island, Vancouver. Her architecture studies in Sarajevo, the war torn capitol, came to an end, but her education resumed in Canada, where she focused on ceramics. In clay she found it possible to meld her interests in architecture and [...]
Resplendent Decay: The Enigmatic Tile Sculpture of Jason H. Green
Ornament Now 2006, Installation of exhibit at Fosdick-Nelson Gallery. Distant memory, sensuous undulations, fragments of time… The visual poetry of Jason H. Green’s tile speaks in a language of patience and introspection. There are echoes of paradox in his art. Decorative surfaces suggest the vernacular of architectural ornament. They combine with the methodical application [...]
Every Tile Tells A Story: the Illustrative Art of Barbara Schmidt
Coverings Select 2010 Award Winner - Barbara Schmidt’s “Lotus Hand” tile (dimensions: 6”X6” ) Stained in sepia tones and washed in soft muted colors, the carved relief tiles of Barbara Schmidt speak of a time when fairy tales, myths and nursery rhymes were the predominant literature offered to children. The characters Schmidt carves in porcelain include [...]
The Secret Life of Raindrops: The handmade ceramic tiles of Leah Shafir Zahavi
Garden at Night (Dimensions: 24.8” x 31.8” ) Mosaics by Ilana Shafir, integrated with Inspiration Pieces by Leah Shafir Zahavi Leah Shafir Zahavi grew up in Ashkalon, Israel. As a child exploring this 4,000-year-old city on the Mediterranean, she breathed deeply the aroma of almond trees, listened to the receding echo in the rhythmic arches [...]
The Atavistic Archaeology of Janet Kozachek
Kozachek’s Kneeling Woman: 12” x 12” History, pathos, mysticism, ancient Chinese ideograms form the layers of innuendo in Janet Kozachek’s multi-dimensional art. Working in ceramic relief, pique assiette and handmade tiles, each mosaic represents a journey into the landscape of Kozachek’s brilliant mind. She says that her recent “Archaeology” series is “an observation on the [...]
The Lyrical Fusions of Paola Orsoni
Paola Orsoni at work in her studio. Italian artist Paola Orsoni creates lyrical fusions of terracotta, glass, and metal. She has harnessed the disruptive process of hot and cold to cajole the marriage of unlike materials into vibrant splashes of radiant color and dynamic texture. “Dripping” tile. Created entirely by hand in her Milan studio, [...]
Tile As Textile
The Tale of Two Tile Makers Luigi Priante and Jorge Simes create individual works of art, each tile a hand crafted innovative expression of design. They explore the essential properties of leather and glass, and expand both with their own elegant interpretations. By manipulating their materials and applying an uncommon aesthetic, their tiles retain the [...]
