Ohio Tiles

A customer in Pennsylvania requested a sycamore leaf tile. Sycamore trees are prevalent where she lives, and she wanted tiles to reflect the local environment. My dad is really good at identifying plants, so I asked him there are any sycamore trees are here in Kent. It turns out sycamores are fairly prevalent here, too! There is a fine specimen just a few blocks from my house. There are some even closer, but they are in people's yards and aren't accessible. After a short walk to harvest a few leaves, I pressed them in a book for a few days, and then...

It has been far too long since I have posted installation pictures! Photographs of this lovely hearth showed up in my inbox this week, and there is no time like the present for me to share them with you.  The client sent this explanation for their choice of tiles: "We tore out our old fireplace mantel/surround and I designed and built one more to the craftsman style we like. We searched forever to find the tiles that we felt would be perfect for the job.  The leaf tiles represent the three types of trees we have in our yard.  The black...

This is one of my favorite times of year. The blossoms are blooming, the leaves are budding, and indigenous gallery is having their annual artTILE extravaganza!! It is a huge honor for me to be a part of this invitational show.  (They even put a picture of some of my tiny tiles on the back of the postcard!) If you have never been to indigenous gallery, you are missing out. I have been fortunate to be a part of every one of the previous artTILE shows, and they just keep getting better every year. There couldn't be a more perfect...

Yesterday the post office was closed, but that didn't stop us from making a tile delivery. Darrell and I took advantage of the nice weather to drive these three boxes of tiles to Ginko Gallery in Oberlin, OH. This packing job would not have been adequate for the mail, but it worked just fine for us yesterday. We have a tradition of delivering tiles to Ginko Gallery in person whenever possible. It is the first gallery ever to carry my work, so we have been going there for over a decade. We try to visit at least once a year....

This bathroom sink features a "Birds on a Branch" triptych and two field tiles set as a back splash. These tiles were specially made with a "bull nose" or slightly rounded edge on the top the the right and left sides. The glaze is "Celadon." The wall color, and even the soap, are similar in color to the handmade tiles.  The shower also features handmade tiles. For the shower, the homeowners selected tiles in the same glaze, but in a smaller size. You can see a close up of one of these two inch by two inch tiles at the...

New tiles have been added to our online store! Now available are the 2"x2" Buffalo, (shown below in watercolor blue glaze), the 4"x4" Cicada tile (shown in Autumn Glaze), the 4"x4" Sitting Cat (shown in celadon glaze below and leaf green above), And the 4"x4" Owl facing right (shown in Autumn Glaze): This last tile is meant to be a companion piece to my original owl. The two of them together look like this: To see pictures of all of these tiles in different glazes, please click on the links above. If you have any questions, please contact me. Thank...

I do! That is why I make my owl design in both the four inch size, and the smaller two inch size (which is featured at the  very top of this blog entry.) But up until now, all my owls have always faced left. Now, thanks to a request from "European Tile Art" in San Diego, CA, I am making owls that face to the right, as well. I printed out an image of my large owl tile and sculpted him a friend: I made a mold of this new owl and have already used it to press a few...

This is one of those rare customer installations that I actually got to see in person! Some friends here in town did a beautiful job mixing some of my handmade tiles with "wood-look" porcelain tiles in their newly remodeled bathroom. What a good idea! They get the appearance of wood with the durability of tile, which makes a ton of sense for a shower. I like how they chose to run the plank tiles horizontally, it makes me think of a sauna or spa. There are three groupings of three tiles each inserted around the shower at natural intervals. It...