Ceramics and Pottery Arts and Resources

A collection of various innovative ceramic tile artists, past and present.

 

Motawi Tileworks

 

The Motawi Tileworks was began in 1992, when Nawal Motawi set up a table at a farmers market and received a commission to create her first local fireplace installation. Today, their handcrafted tiles can be found in homes nationwide. The tiles are currently produced in a studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan and represent an eclectic mix of historical decorative art styles including block prints by Yoshiko Yamamoto, the graphic art of Frank Lloyd Wright, the De Stijl Movement, Art Nouveau, Mary Chase Stratton, Adelaide Robineau, Louis Sullivan, C.F. Voysey, William DeMorgan and Dard Hunter.

Motawi Tiles now consists of the sibling duo of Karim and Nawal Motawi and their staff of talented artisans. Nawal studied sculpture and ceramics at the University of Michigan and learned tile-making at Pewabic Pottery.  Karim, also educated at the U of M, runs the production studio and teaches tile-making classes.

Motawi’s polychrome tile decorators are affectionately referred to as “the Bee Gees,” short for “bulb glazers,” because they use bulb syringes to pool glaze onto the tiles. In this centuries-old technique—called cuenca, or simply raised-line—color areas are separated by the tiny ridges of clay that are formed in the pressing process.

Site Link

 

 ‘Confetti’ – Motawi Tileworks

 

 

 

 Frank Lloyd Wright style ‘March Balloons’ Tile -Motawi Tileworks

 

 

 Koi tile mural – Motawi Tileworks

 

 

Motawi Tileworks –  Tile inspired from the Hoffman House Rug- Frank Lloyd Wright

 

 

 ‘Limp on a Limb’ – Motawi Tileworks

 

 

 

 Grey blue ‘Songbirds’ – Motawi Tileworks

 

 

 ‘Autumn Edibles’ – Motawi Tileworks

 

 

‘Frozen Spheres’ – Motawi Tileworks

 

 

 Motawi ‘Bleeding Heart’ Tile

Janice L. Walrafen

 

Janice  grew up in the Senoran desert of Arizona with her artist/potter mother and two sisters. She currently resides along the Winooski River in Plainfield Vermont among the wise white pine, sweet cedar, fiddleheads, cattails, wild and domestic creatures that share her home and garden; red squirrel, crow, turkey, deer, jay, merganser, fox, owl, mink, weasel, otter, chickadee, yellow finch, grouse, woodpecker, goose, duck, canine, and human friends. All an influence on her art.

Her decorative relief tiles are created by pressing clay into an original plaster mold. Each tile is then carefully dried, fired and hand painted with studio-made glazes, fired a second time to a stoneware temperature of 2200 degrees, creating colorful and unique tiles.

Site link 

 

 

 

 ‘Beautiful Birches’  Janice L. Walrafen

 

 

 

 ‘Mermaid’ – Janice L. Walrafen

 

 

 

 ‘Pheasants’ – Janice L.Walrafen

 

 

 

 ‘Ravens Wood’ – Janice L. Walrafen

 

Chris Gryder

 

“I create sculptural ceramic objects that engage with a deep sense of time and history; a geological time and the time of civilizations. There is a visceral joy, a complete indulgence in tactile geometric form that evokes a world where wonder still reigns. A place at the edge of the wild.”

Site Link

 

 ‘Candy Mountain’ by Chris Gryder

 

 

 

‘Burst’ –  Chris Gryder, Ceramic panels

27in-x-27in-x-2in

 

 

 

 ‘Sectio Auria’ – Bas Relief Sculpture – Chris Gryder

Roanoke, Virginia, United-States

 

 

 

‘Infinity Squared’ – Chris Gryder

 

 

Medicine Bluff Studio

 

Medicine Bluff Studio began in 2001 and is co-owned by John and Debbie Beasley. John designs and sculpts all the products from his studio in Florence, Kentucky.

Site Link

 

 

 Heron Tile – Medicine Bluff Studio

4×8 inches

 

 

 

 Medicine Bluff  – ‘Koi’

 

 

 

 ‘Mother to be’ – Medicine Bluff Studio

 

 

 

 

 Medicine Bluff Studio ‘Peacock’ wall panel tile

 

Ellen Rundle

 

“My studio is in my home where I live in Granada Hills. When I am working on a large jobs it seems my entire property becomes engulfed in clay pieces and equipment. Clay is a material that you have to “live” with since there are many steps in the process and each one requires that the material be in a particular stage of drying before the firing and glazing processes begin. There is always an element of surprise!”

 

Site Link

 

 Ellen Rundle ‘Tree Of Life’ fountain

 

 

 

 Ellen Rundle ceramic sculpture murallete inspired by St. Marks Basilica, Venice

27×36 inches

 

 

Creative Concepts – Los Angeles

Site Link

 

 

 Reproduction of the fountain mural at the Adamson house in Malibu, California

Creative Concepts, LA

 

 

 Twin Peacock Wall Mural

Creative Concepts

 

 

A gothic cloister of majolica tiles at Santa Chiara in Naples (14th century) by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro, Painters Giuseppe and Donato Massa

1739-1742

 

 

 

 Art Nouveau majolica tile

 

 

 

Lisboa Azulejos white and blue tilework

 

 

 

Casa Batllo, Barcelona – design Antoni Gaudi

 

 

 

 Harris Strong

 

 

 

 

Tiled balcony – Lake Como, Italy

John & Tina Reid, Flickr

 

 

 

 Tiled steps in Rio

 A photo sent by my eldest son Curtiss from his travels through S.America

 

 

 

 City Palace – Jaipur, India

 

 

 

 Raku Zebra Tiled Panel – Jill Gerlach, flickr

 

 

 Nouveau style ‘Ginkgo’ tile – Lewellen Studio

 

 

 

 Lynne Meade

 

 

 

 Tiled Mural at the  Montelupo Fiorentino Italian ceramics trade festival

 

 

 

Celtic style carved relief tile – Earthesong

 

 

 Motawi Caribbean Blue Collage Fireplace by Michelle Nelson Design

 

 

 

 Patchwork kitchen floor tiles

 

 

 

 Azulejos wall mural – Church of St. John the Evangelist, Cadaval Palace, Evora

 

 

 

Spanish wall fountain with  hand painted tiles.

 

 

 

Art Nouveau Majolica Ceramic Tile

France – 1890-to-1910

 

 

  Talavera Tile Fountain, Mexico

Russ Bowling-Flickr

 

 

 

Azure Blue Pool, Hearst Castle

San Simeon, California

 

 

 

Indian ceramic wall tiles

photo Umair Ghani

 

 

Mid Century Triptych  Tile Panel by Panos Valsamakis

 

 

 

Gothic Pewabic Pottery Tiling by Mary Chase Stratton

St. Paul’s Cathedral-Detroit

 

 

 

Majolica Tiles at the Monastery Santa Chiara, Naples

 

 

 

 Van Briggle tiles, Colorado Springs

 

 

 

Longwy Primavera trivet – ceramic tile with minor crazing

Treadway Toomey

 

 

 

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