Call it Decades of Home Improvement

Last century, I made a fancy tile backsplash for our new kitchen. It was a nature scene. I drew the design on blank quarry tiles, filled in three coats of glaze as though I were coloring in a coloring book, and had them fired.

There are easier ways of doing this. Usually, when you see a scene depicted in tile, the artist has painted the scene once and then put a clear glaze over the painting. After its been fired, it will look like a watercolor. Unfortunately, I wanted the thick, jewelly, luscious version the deep, yummy, stained-glass version. And that takes three coats of each color.

Its one thing to draw a design and fill it in with a coat of glaze. The precision required to repeat that design exactly with the second and third coats would rattle a surgeon. Glaze is thick. I used a tiny brush. It was like pushing mud around with a bunch of eyelashes.

Clearly, this was a medieval monks work.

Also, I sort of punted on the design. It was a Pacific Northwest scene, anchored by Mt. St. Helens erupting, which is what Mt. St. Helens was busy doing at the time. I had 12 square feet to fill. Thats a lot of ground to cover when youre pushing mud around with a bunch of eyelashes.

People seem to like the tile scene, but I always see this large, featureless green hill yawning across the middle. If there were an artists statement associated with this project, it would be: In this work I hope to demonstrate my sincere desire to get this aggravating project over with.

Still, eventually, after one or 3,000 hours I lost track I got it finished, packed it off to a kiln, and it came out just fine. Phase 1 of the backsplash was installed in triumph.

But heres the thing. I started making gift tiles. Little things, like trivets. And about half the time they came out just fine, and half the time they Most Certainly Did Not. They came out of the kiln all runny and blurry, like over-nuked leftovers. There was no predicting it, it seemed. I asked the kiln owners if they had any insight into this. Not one did.

Thats the beauty of ceramics, theyd tell me through rumpled grins, shrugging in their muddy smocks. You never really know what youre going to get! Glazes are temperamental! They spoke fondly, as though they were talking about a beloved pet that nobody else can stand to be around.

I have enough trouble finishing an art project. I dont need my materials getting into a snit.

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Call it Decades of Home Improvement