 |
Yellow Toad-shade
(Trillium luteum) |
When I first started doing pottery, it was through the Grosse Pointe Community Education program, where I had the opportunity to work with Gene Pluhar. The pottery bug having bitten, I often went out to the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Association for classes during the summer, where I met Jan Sadowski. Later, after I moved out of the Grosse Pointe Public School System, coupled with the fact they changed the enrollment process for Gene's very popular classes and that I had not yet established my own studio, I started taking classes at Pewabic Pottery with Tom Gennette. The last class I took through Pewabic was a tile-making class with Dave McGee, a very talented artist who is employed as a designer with the pottery to this day.
 |
Small Solomon's Seal
(Polygonatum biflorum) |
Although I didn't actually turn out any "product" in Dave's class, I learned a lot about making tiles, everything behind applying basic theory (negative space is a no-no!) and basic techniques (water-to-plaster proportions in making molds). I've actually reconnected a bit with Dave recently and he continues to generously provide very useful techniques and advice, even to former students!
If I had to label 2012 as a particular "year" for Black Cat Pottery, it would have to be "The Year of the Tile". I created several series of tiles - including my Hot Pepper Tiles, Baby Bell Pepper Tiles, the first two Wildflower Tiles, two Native Leaf Tile designs, a Michigan Tile and two large-format (six-inch) Sweet Pepper Tiles, as well as returning to a large Sunflower Plaque design I worked on while taking Dave's Class.
 |
Yellow Toad-shade (Trillium luteum) and
Small Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum biflorum)
Wildflower Tiles in Indigo Float |
The Wildflower Tiles were inspired by Don Schulte's photographs of the wildflowers in my garden and were the first designs I wanted to tackle. I actually met with Don, first to secure his permission to use his copyrighted images as my inspiration. (I didn't think he would have a problem with me doing so - nor did he, but I felt it prudent to ask.) We also discussed various methods of "reproducing" his images, including relief tile designs, photo transfer and a combination of the two. Through our discussion, I realized I really wanted to reinterpret the images as relief tiles.
As I was just returning to the tile-making technique, I thought I should select relatively simple images, finally settling on Small Solomon's Seal (
Polygonatum biflorum) and Yellow Toad-shade (
Trillium luteum), both of which I have included above for your reference. I knew my tiles were not going to be "verbatim" reproductions of Don's images, nor did I want them to be; I wanted them to be stand-alone works in their own right. I tackled the Trillium image first, as the simplified masses seemed a good place to begin.
 |
Yellow Toad-shade (Trillium luteum) and
Small Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum biflorum)
Wildflower Tiles in Vert Lustre |
I started out by making a copy of the image the same size as the master tile and then blocked out the masses I wanted to include in the final design on the copy; I then made several copies of this "blocking" to work with in creating the design.
After rolling out a thick slab of clay, I used a six-inch tile cutter to cut out a correctly-sized square of lay on which to build up my design. (A six-inch tile cutter does not cut out a six-inch tile; it cuts out a tile of the correct size to end up roughly equivalent - depending on a given type of clay's rate of shrinkage - to a standard six-inch tile, which is actually less than six inches as it must allow for the grout around the tile when it is set into a design.)
 |
Yellow Toad-shade (Trillium luteum) and
Small Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum biflorum)
Wildflower Tiles in Vert Lustre |
Starting with the blocked section of the design for the leaves of the Yellow Toad-shade, I rolled out a thin slab of clay, overlaid the cut-out from the design and, at an angle, cut it out and then applied it to the slab and smoothed the join all around and corrected the edges. I then went back and followed the same process for the three petals and two sepals that were further back in the design, leaving the sepal at the forefront for last - how to handle its dimension was pretty perplexing still. I left the design for several days and returned to it, finally adding the last sepal.
Making the master is the most demanding part of making a tile. It is the part of the process the artist sweats over, because that's the design, that's what it's going to "be". Once it's finished, the process becomes pretty mechanical: making the mold; casting tile (after tile, after tile, after tile); drying the tiles; cleaning up the tiles; bisque firing the tiles; glazing the tiles; firing the tiles; selling the tiles (hopefully). I was very pleased with how these turned out and will be returning to the series this winter to create the next two designs.
