Handmade Tile

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...

The owner of this bathroom originally wanted the tiles to be glazed in white, but then switched to autumn instead after talking to a friend. I think she made the right decision! The autumn glaze really shines alongside these counters and woodwork. They all have similar variegation which makes everything pleasingly harmonious. Counters are "fired steel" by Wilsonart.  close up of the tiles before they left the studio These installation pictures appeared in my inbox within 24 hours of receiving another set of pictures of a very similar installation that used white glaze instead. That bathroom looked better with white, this one...

In honor of the new year and the fact that the days are now getting a little bit lighter, I am sharing these luminous bathroom photos. According to the homeowners, the previous décor was rather dark so they wanted to brighten things up, and that is exactly what they did!  White glaze was selected for the tiles to match the counters and cabinets. A row of four by four inch tiles is capped by a row of one by six inch ribbon tiles.  The tiles are installed over both of the two matching sinks. They add a little bit of subtle variation...

This year is rapidly coming to a close and I still haven't posted about the coolest project of 2021. Time to fix that! I first learned that my city was planning to build a tower to house chimney swifts way back in late 2019 when Rhonda Boyd, Kent's lead engineer, called me up to pitch the project. Rhonda explained to me that chimney swifts used to live primarily in hollow trees which are now in short supply, especially in urban areas, so the birds have adapted to live in chimneys. Unfortunately modern buildings often do not have traditional chimneys so when...

So pleased that I get to see how great this installation turned out!! This project was a bit outside my comfort zone. This is the first time I have ever made custom tiles to match stained glass windows! The homeowner sent me a picture of one of the windows next to the fireplace and a drawing of what he wanted the tile to look like: And I got to work reproducing the design to the best of my ability. I am really happy with the results, and more importantly, so is the client! The homeowner did an impeccable job of...