How Do You Keep Track of All Those Tiles?

in #art6 years ago

process setting.JPG

One of the most frequently asked questions about my process of making ceramic mosaics is “how to do you keep track of all of those pieces?” and it's a very good one.

@ddschteinn asked me this question recently and then yesterday again a studio visitor did as well so I decided to answer it more publicly. Often people wonder if I number each tile in order to keep track of it through the process of cutting, glazing, firing each part of a mosaic. This is a good thought but picking up each tile and putting a number on the back of each takes forever. I know this since I did it on the second mosaic I ever made back in 1996.

Actually it’s a funny story. I had a 18” square mosaic of a bluefish underwater laid out on a piece of wood. At that point it was all loose pieces put together but not affixed to anything. I was driving it home from my studio so I could install it on to a piece of tile-board. I stopped by a friend’s house and wanted to show her this piece I was so excited about. When I was walking up to her front door with the mosaic on wood, I tripped and fell. You can imagine the tiny tiles flying everywhere!

bluefish mosaic sf.jpeg
this is the only photo I could find of this Bluefish piece, it was an 18 square*

The next time I made a piece I diligently numbered the back of each tiny tile to prevent this kind of disaster but halfway through I gave up and decided that I would learn to walk without tripping instead ;-).

From the beginning of making my own mosaics from wet clay, I’ve had to develop systems to keep track of the tiles and at this point, it’s pretty simple. Really it boils down to keeping each section all together beginning to end.

Below are examples from my current mural project for a Portland Pool House. The mural is about 7' x 8' so it takes a lot of careful tracking of tiles and sections of tile.

process working drawing.JPG

I have a shop drawing (above) I’ve created by using a copy machine to reproduce sections of the original drawing (below):

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I created the drawing over the winter

I transfer/draw the drawing onto the clay:

process transfer on to clay, cut.JPG

Once I've cut it out, I'll move it onto a kiln shelf:

process cut.jpg

And it will stay in its section in its place next to the same neighboring pieces all the way through the bisque firing and glaze firing.

process glazing.jpg[]opening the kiln.JPG

At this point the tiles have been glaze fired and are finished. I take all of these tiles directly off the kiln shelf and put them on top of the drawing and arrange them in the right place. It's usually pretty obvious what goes where given the shape, color and the fact that I've now drawn each, cut each, and glazed each one. In the photo below you can see, a few pieces are missing. They needed to be a bit darker so right now I am reglazing and firing them but once I have all the tiles for this section out of the kiln and placed onto the drawing, I'll put a face adhesive over them. This is a large sheet of tape that will hold them together so the installer can set each section as a whole. You'll see this in action in the next 4 weeks as I wrap up the project.

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As always I appreciate your support and comments, your engagement here on Steemit makes all the difference!
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How do you complete a 1000 pieces puzzle?!
I'd answer them like this 😎
Great job 👏👏👏

Wow your work is very impressive, I would never realized how much work goes into creating mosaic tiles if you hadn't have told me,how long would that work for the pool house take roughly? and then assembling it xxx

thank you @trucklife-family! the pool house mosaic so far has been about 250 hours and I probably have about 200 more to go but at the end I'll tally it all up for real and take a look. Sometimes my perception is different than reality!

Love the process, love the result. There is something incredibly seductive about working in clay and glazing is magical. Following you.

Thanks so much @kathlooenscarboro, it's great to meet you! I just took a look at your blog and was wowed :-))

Thank you; so glad you like my work too.

These are so gorgeous. What a skill you've mastered :)

Would love to have art/tiles like these when I finally get to build my own house one day!

thank you and I would LOVE to make some for you :-)) xo

Awesome :)

I've never seen ceramic art in the making before, so thank you for writing all the details in your process of creation. I can tell that this is going to be amazing when it's finally done.

-upvoted-

thank you @scrawly, glad you enjoyed seeing this. I sure hope it will indeed be amazing :-)

I love seeing your process and hope one day to see in in action in real life :)

I would probably not number them either, as my first thought was that too, and then realized I'd probably lose interest half way through and think, as you did, just don't trip. Great advice but probably hard to follow through on, though have you ever tripped again?

I watched a great video on your site about the process and it was so fascinating. I even though of you yesterday when I was doing a silly little project in my garden. I was digging out a little square of earth to end a gravel terrace I am making. I wanted to find a way to end the lawn into the gravel without it getting everywhere, so I dug down and then went down to our beach and collected up rocks of varying sizes and spent a good couple of hours arranging them into patterns. I thought, "I could make an interesting pattern or design" but lost patience and managed to just sort of randomly sort them and then add a bit of concrete to set it. It was not very decorative, I can assure you. It did give me pause that I should try a bit one day with more intentional pattern.

You must have great patience to arrange all your hand cut tiles into the beautiful work you create. It truly demonstrates your genius in this process and the artistic skill with which you yield with such panache'.

When you move will all these tiles have to be wrapped individually to protect them, or are you planning to have it all completed prior to your move?

Good luck and I can't wait to see the next phase of it. The colour and glaze is so rich and full of depth.

Thank you @donnadavisart and thanks for the resteem :-)
what kind compliments here, I'm touched! Arranging rocks for your garden terrace is so fun and can be so beautiful in a random configuration (like nature drops rocks on the beach). Reminds me of this one time I did a project of square field tiles for this gorgeous bathroom and these squares were in about 15 different greens. My assistant and I brought them all to the site in boxes intending to lay out the green tiles on the floor in the most beautiful configuration of the greens we could conjur all in preparation for the tile setter to put them in place. So first we lay them out just straight out of the box randomly thinking we'd then move them around, but when we looked at the random it was perfect. We couldn't see one tile that we needed to move, lol! So much for thougthful planning and patterns being superior!

Anyway thanks for your support and friendship, I really look forward to meeting you in person, seeing studios, sharing ideas and learning from each other!

Your story is interesting and I appreciate you @natureofbeing

Wow, so beautiful ! The sheen of those tiles <3 Very gorgeous and what a wonderful craft and talent you have !!! <3

Incredible article and official work.

Wow your job is pretty amazing, you do beautiful creations. I imagine one of those mosaics in a big living room, it would see outstanding.

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