Wordless Wednesday: White Iris and Blue Mosaic Bowling Ball
Category: House Numbers & Featured Commissions
Wordless Wednesday: The Complete Piece Sign Mosaic for a Quilter
Wordless Wednesday: Art Deco Inspired Mosaic Switchplate by Margaret Almon
Commission Margaret
Wordless Wednesday: Custom Mosaic House Number for a Craftsman Style Home in Brown and Copper
A Commission of Love in Purple and Violet Mosaic by Nutmeg Designs
Nutmeg Designs Mosaic House Numbers in the Handmade Tile Association 2013 Directory
Before Stratoz and I started making our own art, we were big fans and collectors of art tile. When we discovered the Handmade Tile Association Guide to Handmade Tile and Mosaic Mosaic Artists, we knew we wanted to be a part of it. A box of the glossy catalogs arrived!
The HTA is based in Minnesota, and many of the artists listed are in the midwest or pacific northwest, so it was cool to help fill out the northeast listings, in the company of two tile makers we love and own work from Moravian Pottery & Tile Works, and the Sligo Creek Tile Company.
Check our gig as the Featured Artists in the January Newsletter.
I featured our house numbers. I braved the learning curve of figuring out how to make an advertisement with photoshop. Part of my planning for the business is getting the point that I can hire other talented folks to do some of the things that take me a long time!
More tile images at my Art Tile Awe Pinterest Board.
Commission a House Number from Nutmeg Designs.
Tell me about your favorite tile.
A Custom House Number Inspired by Totem Poles and Emily Carr
I am grateful for clients who ask for colors in such a vivd and detailed way, and then set me loose to translate this into glass mosaic. Stratoz’s Flickr friend Ghir commissioned a house number for a Christmas gift for her sister. She described the house and her vision:
It is a bluish grey with darker charcoal grey roof, with dark teal and white trim. Inside, they’ve decorated with many items from Alaska trips, so the colors on the outside of their house remind me of weathered totem poles. I was thinking white numbers on a dark teal or teal and blue mixed field, maybe with contrasting details of dull red or yellow for the totem pole idea. . .
This made me think of one of my favorite artists, the Canadian Emily Carr(1871-1945), and some paintings from Emily Carr: An Introduction to her Life and Work by Anne Newlands. Emily Carr made totem poles a central part of her art, and in 1912 visited over 15 coastal First Nations villages in Northern British Columbia, drawing and painting the carvings. The watercolor that I remembered from Newlands’ book was House Post, Tsatsinuchomi, BC, with the weathered blue-green and bits of red. Working on this house number commission was a delight, and several other clients have asked to have those colors in their signs.
watercolour and graphite on paper
55.4 cm x 76.6 cm
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Purchased 1928
3542
Order your House Number here at Nutmeg Designs Etsy Shop.
Emily Carr, Group of Seven and Canadian Art Love Pinterest Board
Wordless Wednesday: A Mosaic Cross Pendant for Mimi
A Word Plaque: Believe and the Possibility of Mending
I am honored when our friend Joan entrusts us with a word that is meaningful to her. Stratoz starts with the word as a whole, and decides where to put the cut-lines, and then the word slowly comes back together again, back buttering each piece with glue. Over at Calm Things, Shawna Lemay posted a photo of a shattered teacup and poems by Dorianne Laux and Mary Oliver and ended with her own words:
{Instructions to myself}: See with your hand outstretched. See the heart of your friend, a blue cup, a chinese dragon teacup. See, reaching out. See what may be on the brink. Hold it in your cupped hands.
This friend lost her husband and had her heart broken, and holds her outstretched to embrace “believe.”
Custom Mosaic House Number for a California Bungalow: Craftsman Home Love
We had our first repeat house number customer at Nutmeg Designs! She moved to a beautiful creamy yellow bungalow in California, and wanted something yellow, white, and with black numbers, so this became our first house number with pale grout and dark numbers. Our client envisioned a translucent soft yellow, and I found iridized translucent glass tile, and a border of recycled glass brushed with yellow tones, and a little pale gold smalti at the edges for sparkle. I always feel a thrill when a client loves their number:
The outline of yellows shine and shimmer from the street like glitter, it draws the eye. I have received so many compliments on it already. I will be sure to pass your information along to admirers. Thanks again for all your hard work.
Order your House Number here at Nutmeg Designs Etsy Shop.