Tile Heritage-ENEWS



(Available each month to Tile Heritage members who e-mail the Foundation from the address they would like
E-News sent to. Contact: foundation@tileheritage.org)     PRINTED VERSION




Here’s What’s Below:

New Member Tile Gallery

Important Deadlines

Upcoming Events

CERF Support

Lifetime for Winter

Tile Heritage Prizes

On a Sad Note







                                                 New Member Tile Gallery

Here’s a New Years treat for you, the Member Tile Gallery! Click here for a colorful surprise! Although all members are listed in Who Supports THF, members who contribute $100 or more each year in membership fees (providing they have a website to link to) are now featured in the gallery with an image of their work. It is truly a striking array of tile talent!

To establish the gallery we chose a representative image from each member’s website. If you wish to have a different image of your work, email our web designer Julia Murray, julmurray@aol.com, with an image of your choice—roughly 4” x 4” at 150 dpi—and copy us in foundation@tileheritage.org so that we can track your request. If you are not in the gallery and would like to be, simply upgrade your membership to the Centurian ($100) level—we will advance your expiration date accordingly—and then email an image with your website link. (Please do not email credit card numbers—use snail mail or fax 707 431-8455.)

Looking down the road apiece, we plan to provide an option that will instantly regionalize the Member Tile Gallery. With a simple click a viewer will be able to see all gallery members in a particular area of the country. We’ll keep you posted.




                                     Important Deadlines Ahead!

Call for Entries. The search is on for architectural and design projects representing the most innovative and visionary use of ceramic tile and natural stone, and $36,000 in prize money is at stake as the annual Spectrum and Prism Awards issue their Call for Entries. As is tradition, the competitions—Spectrum for tile, Prism for stone—culminate with a presentation ceremony during the Coverings expo and conference, April 17-20, in Chicago. Detailed information and entry forms are available at www.coverings.com. Deadline: February 2, 2007.

Call for Entries. The Lincoln Arts & Culture Foundation is presenting Feats of Clay XX, its 12th annual juried competition of ceramic works on April 28-May 27, 2007 featuring artists from the U.S., Canada and Mexico. This celebratory exhibition of contemporary ceramic art will be held at the renowned Gladding, McBean clay factory in Lincoln, California and displayed inside an original 35-foot beehive kiln and in the historic architectural design studio. Juror: Sherman Hall, editor of Ceramics Monthly. Prospectus / Deadline for submissions: February 2, 2007.

500 Tiles, a proposed gallery-style book, will showcase images of ceramic tiles. Lark Books is seeking all kinds of architectural and decorative ceramic tiles, including mosaic, terra cotta, painted, and textured, created by studio artists from around the globe. Diverse materials, techniques, and styles are desired. Juror: Angelica Pozo. Scheduled for release in the fall of 2007, 500 Tiles aims to serve as an inspiring collection for beginning and professional tile makers, as well as tile collectors and enthusiasts. Entry deadline: February 1, 2007. For more information on submitting, please go to www.larkbooks.com.

March 15, 2007 is the application deadline for both the Juried Tile Show and the Northwest Handmade Tile Show both presented by Artisan Tile NW and held simultaneously at the Swedish Heritage Center in Seattle on Friday and Saturday, April 27-28, 2007. The 2-day tile festival will bring together the Northwest’s amazing tile creators with other tile artists, buyers, designers, architects, home owners, and all those who are passionate about handmade tiles. “Insects” is the theme for the Juried Tile Show. For more information go to www.artisantilenw.org






Upcoming Events in Brief

March 2 - April 22, 2007. Artisan Tile NW Spring Show in Seattle at the Northwest Craft Center and Gallery at the Seattle Center. Members of Artisan Tile NW will be showing their work. For details and directions go to www.artisantilenw.org

March 14-17, 2007. NCECA’s 41st Annual Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. Visit www.nceca.net for details.

March 21-24, 2007. SAMA’s 6th Annual Conference in Mesa, Arizona. Go to www.americanmosaics.org for more information.

April 17-20, 2007. Coverings will be held in Chicago at McCormick Place. Check out www.coverings.com for more information.

April 27-28, 2007. Northwest Handmade Tile Show in Seattle at the Swedish Heritage Center. For details go to www.artisantilenw.org

May 19-20, 2007. Tile Festival in Doylestown, Pennsylvania at the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works. See www.mptw.go.to






CERF Support

The Tile Heritage Foundation is continuing its monthly support of CERF, the Craft Emergency Relief Fund, in its effort to respond with financial assistance to craft artists throughout the country impacted by a broad range of emergencies, the most notable of which were caused by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. As of the end of last October this national organization had committed close to $300,000 in grants, loans and other donated services to over 100 craft artists in Louisiana and Mississippi. CERF is the only nonprofit focused entirely on emergency assistance for artists in the US.

Especially impressive is the organization’s proactive approach of helping artists prepare for and mitigate the effects of disasters, focused in areas that are disaster-prone. Artists are encouraged to develop disaster plans, to store copies of their portfolios offsite, to understand the ins and outs of insurance coverage, and to evaluate risks.

We are proud of our support of this worthy organization and want to encourage Tile Heritage members to join with us in supporting its programs. Take a few minutes and check out the website for detailed information: www.craftemergency.org





                                                               Imagine a Lifetime for Winter!

While celebrating its 30th anniversary, the Southern California Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH/SCC) took the opportunity to acknowledge one of its founding fathers, Dr. Robert Winter, known to many as Bungalow Bob, with a prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. The gala took place at a candlelit banquet in the elegant ballroom of the Lanterman House (Arthur L. Haley, 1915) in La Cañada on Sunday, December 3, 2006. (Dr. Winter was quick to point out that the house, with all due respect, was NOT a bungalow!) Among the celebrities present at the event were Sheila Menzies and Irene de Watteville representing the board of the Tile Heritage Foundation

Dr. Winter, architectural historian and professor emeritus at Occidental College, serves as custodian for the house of tilemaker Ernest Batchelder (1876-1957), where he has kindly hosted a Tile Heritage symposium and welcomed countless visitors over the years. Through 43 years of teaching, 13 books (including the invaluable Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles), another on its way, tours, public lectures, service on commissions, Bob Winter has surely done more to arouse interest in Southern California’s architectural (and tile!) heritage and to inspire its preservation than any other living person.

Kudos to Bungalow Bob!





                                                                                           Tile Heritage Prizes

The Tile Heritage Foundation provides prize money each year in support of contemporary tile-related artwork. We do not involve ourselves in choosing the prizewinners; we leave this up to the jurors involved in each competition. The Tile Heritage Prize is awarded to the artist whose work, in the jurors’ judgment, best reflects ceramic traditions.

The Tile Heritage Prix Primo was awarded to Bob Smith of Idledale Pottery, Idledale, Colorado for his piece “Arid Torrent,” submitted last spring to the 16th annual National Ceramic Competition presented by the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, Texas. Juror Ann Lancaster, co-founder and former executive director of the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, commented that Smith’s work “reminds us of clay’s practical place in the manmade world.”

Quoting Bob Smith from his “Artist’s Statement”: I have been changed significant ly and irrevocably by making clay art. My head, hands and heart have come together during this active, long-term pursuit of my dreams. I am beginning to understand the complexities of my medium, and because I work hard and with care and sincerity to train my hands to do what they must, in this self-actualization I have become passionate. Through some stroke of good fortune, I have found work which is satisfying, engaging, challenging, and comprehensive, and through which my heart can sing.

At the Third International Ceramic Tile Triennial (elit-tile) presented by the Igneri Foundation Art and Archaeology at the Museum of Modern Art, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in mid-November, Dwain Naragon was awarded the Tile Heritage Prize. The jurors Mark Gordon from the U.S., Francois Ruegg from Switzerland, and tonal contrasts and Wilfredo Torres from Cuba commented on Natagon’s excellent use of glazes, his exquisite way of realizing the duality of repeated patterns.

Dwain Naragon is Professor of Art at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. Commenting on his work he wrote, “For years I have studied historical ceramics. Consequently this has led me to exploring anthropology and archaeology which provide universal clues to functionality and containment.”

Prizes were awarded in mid-September for “One Square Foot,” a national juried tile exhibition at the Infinity Gallery in Minneapolis presented by Clay Squared to Infinity. Among the works chosen by juror Jason Busch, formerly a curator of decorative arts at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts was a tile by Wendy Penta-Nelson at Stone Hollow Tile, St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, that won the Tile Heritage Prize. Wendy’s tiles are infused with her love of the Arts and Crafts era. The subtle matte glazes create shadows and capture the moods of nature.






On a Sad Note

There is no easy way to report the loss of two dear friends, Mildred and Chris Bradley, who passed into tile heaven within a month of one another just before the holidays. Many of you will remember them fondly—Chris, the Navy vet with his metal “front legs,” and Mildred with her cherubic charm weighted down with bags full of tiles. On tour Mildred would admonish me for catering to what I perceived as Chris’ needs. “Don’t worry about him,” she would say, “he’ll catch up with us soon enough.” Of course, she was right.

We first met in 1992 when they attended the Tile Heritage symposium in Southern California. From that time on they came to every Tile Heritage event until the recent conference in Minneapolis. Avid rock collectors for years, the two quickly became tile fanatics, collecting both historic and contemporary tiles. Sheila and I visited them at their home on Staten Island and were thrilled to see all the tiles on display, each with its own story. We also noticed that most of the rocks had been relegated to the basement!

Yes, they will be missed, but many of us will carry them both in our hearts for years to come. That’s just the kind of people they were.

Joe Taylor



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