The process of designing and creating a handmade ceramic tile piece is a long one. I began thinking about and drawing designs for the Family Quilt piece for the Bock family in Scottsdale, AZ in December of 2016. I was inspired by the crazy quilt that is hanging in my house that my great grandmother made around 1900. Below are the original drawings that I made for the piece.
I had Mary Bock, who commissioned me, approve the drawings and pick out colors. Then I began glaze testing with textured clay in February 2017.
After colors and textures were approved, the drawings had to be enlarged and transferred to plastic. From there, I began to plan the color and texture arrangement for each of the three panels. This process took most of March 2017. I used the glaze test tiles to layout the color and I used the fabric, metal, and plastic texture samples to decide which tiles would have which texture. Then the plastic patterns had to be labeled with tile number, color, and texture.
In April 2017, I began cutting flat tiles. First, the clay needs to be rolled into large slabs.
I lay the plastic pattern over the slab and then use a ruler to trace the size of the tile into the clay by pressing with a pencil. Next, I remove the plastic and cut the tile with an X-acto knife and ruler. Each tile is labeled on the back.
Tiles are laid out to dry between sheets and drywall boards. When fully dry, or bone dry, they are loaded in the kiln for a bisque firing, or first firing, that reaches approximately 1800 degrees Fahrenheit.
Finished bisques tiles without texture
Next, I began making texture tiles by rolling fabric and plastic into the clay and sometimes pounding metal into clay
There were three very special texture tiles made for this piece. The Bock family has 5 kids for a total of 7 in the family. All 7 family members came to my studio to press their thumbprints in three tiles. Each finished panel has one family thumbprint tile in it.
All tiles bisqued
In May, I glazed and fired 3 kiln loads. On the left you see a glaze kiln before firing. On the right you see a glaze kiln after firing. I usually fire my glaze kilns to about 2200 degrees Fahrenheit. One advantage of working with glazed ceramic tiles is that the color will never fade in the sun. The only way the color can change is if it reaches 2200 degrees again. And although it does get really hot in Phoenix, it doesn't get THAT hot!
Three panels after 1st glaze firing
2nd glaze firing
3rd and final glaze firing
In June, I made three panels out of Hardie Backer cement board and MDF with a french cleat hanging system that the ceramic tiles would be adhered to. I also spent a lot of time trimming tiles on a wet tile saw so that they would fit precisely together. From there I began to adhere all of the tiles with thin set into their permanent location.
All tiles thin set into place
After all tiles are thin set into place, the last step is to grout. It's very messy, and requires a lot of water to sponge all the grout off the tiles after it has been squished into all the cracks.
To see the final piece and where it is installed please see the blog post - Family Quilt.
