Ceramic Handmade Tile Installations

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE customer installation photos? It's so gratifying for me to see where the tiles end up after they leave my studio. A big thank you to S.E. for sending these photos of your "birds on a branch" set in action! Love how it looks with those field tiles! Great job!

This tile installation has become a record a family's history, because every member of this family got to pick out a tile for the hearth! I especially love that the 4 and 5 year old granddaughters carefully selected the mermaid and unicorn tiles. Why not have a few magical creatures in the mix? It totally works! The homeowner told me that whenever they come to visit, they always go to the hearth find "their tile." How sweet! Here is a close up of some of the tiles before they were installed. Quite an assortment! Obviously this is a light-hearted family...

A tiny washroom and spacious kitchen were both thoughtfully refreshed as part of the renovation of this "Craftsman- Victorian" house that was built in Virginia at the turn of the last century. Both rooms kept their historical character while becoming more fun and functional. The addition of bead board and a tiled backsplash enliven the diminutive water closet and provide moisture protection for the walls. I love the energizing hue of the deep gold wainscoting and how it picks up on the color of the cattail tiles over the classic wall mounted sink. The homeowner sweetly commented, "Who ever thought...

Oh, how I love installation pictures! And they are even more fun when they include process photos. This customer got her tiles from River Light Gallery in nearby Peninsula and installed them in her former coach house which she calls "Skyloft." It is a fitting name given those skylights! Looks pretty dreamy to me. Here are the tiles going up: A praying mantis, honeybee, caterpillar and dragonfly each make an appearance in this cheery arrangement.  As you can see, she planned the layout at the gallery before taking them home: Thank you so much, F.R., for including my tiles in...

It is always an honor when a fellow artist chooses my work for their home! Minneapolis painter Sarah Johannsen and I did a partial trade in which she painted a portrait of me and my husband, Darrell, and I made tiles to go behind the range in her kitchen. She selected multiples of the quatrefoil four tile set in honey glaze to harmonize with her sweet vintage home. I love how the tiles look with that retro, yellow floral curtain! Sarah installed the tiles herself and said it turned out exactly how she pictured it beforehand, which is a good thing.  Here...

I can "bear-ly" contain my excitement over these pictures!!! So thrilled to see what over 150 bear tiles look like installed together in this kitchen. It is a lot of bears, for sure, but the fact that they are all glazed in white keeps them from overwhelming the space. The overall feel is "calm" rather than "busy."  The bears combined with the knotty cabinets give the room a "cabin in the woods" vibe which I find very appealing.  From a distance, you might miss the bears! But you can't miss the fact that this room looks like a welcoming and comfortable...

These fun installation pictures are from California. The original stone and brick hearth had some large, square holes in it that were left over from the blower for an old cast iron wood burning fireplace. The homeowners could have torn out the whole hearth and started over from scratch, but instead they decided to make the most of what they already had and turn the cutouts into focal points by filling them with art tiles in designs that have special significance for their family. They replaced the wood burner with a modern electric fireplace made by Dimplex, which looks pretty convincing...

This lovely kitchen is right here in beautiful Kent, Ohio, just around the corner from the elementary school where I first experienced the joy of ceramics!  I realize how lucky I am; not everyone gets to try ceramics in grade school. Thinking about this fact makes me realize that my community began supporting me long before I decided to become a professional artist. This is part of the reason I always vote "yes" for school levies, even though I don't have children of my own.  Most of the tiles I make ship out of state, but I have definitely been...