Sgraffito Tile

Artist Statement

For the Sgraffito Tile project, we were asked to create a design to sgraffito on clay tile. The goal was to become familiar with the aspects of carving and doing surface designs on clay. The subject of my creation is a few overlapping moon/sun figures. There are about 4 crescent moons from my point of view, and two carved-out circles that in some ways resemble the sun. I used a blue glaze (C-27) on top of soft leather hard clay. Using carving tools, I carved away the areas I wanted to keep white, or not the color of the original glaze. I ended up adding a second glaze (C-47) so there weren’t any white spaces. 

Unity is apparent in the tile through how the crescent shapes come back again and again, overlaying onto themselves. The work is arranged so that the piece's unity overlaps with its balance. There is balance in how much space is carved out, and how much is left blue, although the precision of the lines may not be quite even. This project did turn out similar to my original sketch, though it was much less neat than I had hoped. Because in the beginning, I had used more pressure than necessary to carve away at the tile, I ended up with fairly deep gouges in the tile where my negative space is. An element of art that I have rarely used in the past is texture, but I played around with that more for this piece. Making scratch marks on the surface, I realized that there was a lot to be said for how much the smooth spots stand out when there are areas of a roughly textured surface right next to it. I revised some of my original designs because the lines I drew on the tile went in different directions than planned. 

The story behind the piece is experimentation in texture and getting back into clay. I haven’t worked with clay much, so this piece was really a way for me to remember how to sgraffito and how to incorporate these elements of design into my work more. And yet again the motif seems to be the moon in the piece. The movement of the lines of the crescent moon captivates me which drew me to include them in this tile. I often doodle moons that appear similar to the tile, so that seemed to be a good base to create from. I am most proud of the freedom I gave myself to explore a new technique and style. I am bothered by the messiness and imprecision of the glaze work, which simply shows that I need more practice. I would consider revising this piece, and if time allows I would like to recreate it and spend more time on the detail of glazing. Going slower when creating it could also help with the overall look of the tile.