A recent New York Times article reports on benefits of incorporating the natural landscape in the workplace and healthcare environments.  According to “Why We Love Beauty” :

“… window views of landscapes, research shows, can speed patient recovery in hospitals, aid learning in classrooms and spur productivity in the workplace. In studies of call centers, for example, workers who could see the outdoorscompleted tasks 6 to 7 percent more efficiently than those who couldn’t, generating an annual savings of nearly $3,000 per employee.(NYT, 2/25/13) ”

Many of our wall tile murals incorporate natural elements e.g. trees, flowers, water, and have been installed in healthcare settings around the country.  For example, this mural of botanical elements was recently installed at the Bridgeport Hostpial, Bridgeport, CT.

We are inspired by nature!  Living in Vermont provides us with endless inspiration to create murals incorporating landscape elements.

Vermont hillside. Photo credit: Elizabeth Ungerleider

Here’s an example of a landscape mural that Natalie created for a Vermont client:

Here’s what the homeowner says:

“Thank you for all your design ideas, suggestions and offering to sell your stock tile.  I must admit – had you initially told me a tile display for my sized wall was going to cost $9000, I probably would have shelved the tile idea.  Having the tiles here, seeing their beauty and creating a design to fill the space completely threw my initial budget out the window – rightfully so.  A smaller arrangement just wouldn’t have been as dramatic or fitting for the wall.  (I even wondered if we should have used more.  Can always add.)”

Natalie is working closely with a client to design a wall mural for the client’s living room.  Using tiles we have in stock, Natalie has designed this piece, comprised of 16″, 14″ and 12″ tiles.

The client emailed Natalie an image of the rug in the room; the vibrant colors in this mural play very well with the client’s color scheme.

According to Natalie: “I really enjoyed putting this grouping together and could have kept tinkering and moving all day.  The spacing is, of course, not correct, but this is really just a first take on colors, design and general layout.”

We created these five triptychs for a residence in Hawaii. The murals reflect Hawaiian flowers: orchid, plumeria, bird of paradise, heliconia and hibiscus.

Cynthia has been creating this piece and wrote the following about it:

“As I carved this grouping I kept thinking about the scrap quilts I’ve been making. Each square seems like it’s extracted from a larger pattern. Each pattern has a different history. We put them together and the eye flows from one to the next creating a new order and harmony.”

Cynthia’s quilt

Here is a Photoshopped rendition of the tiles, installed in the space they will eventually adorn.

Tree of Life, detail

This closeup of our Tree of Life tile mural shows the uniqueness of our art: the undulating tile, the sgraffito-carving,

the rich glaze colors.  Because each tile is handmade, no two tiles or murals are exactly alike. You are getting a

one-of-a-kind piece of art when you commission a mural by Natalie Blake Studios.  This piece is glazed in honey, jade, cashew and blue, only 4 of our 34 glazes.

Here are a few more closeups:

tile detail

If interested, please contact Jeffcoat Pottery for registration information.  info@jeffcoatpottery.com

910-579-2400

Natalie Blake

In  September we completed this Tree of Life mural for Skyline Art Services.  The piece was installed in the Fort  Belvoir Community Hospital in Virginia.  We are honored that our work was selected for this prestigious hospital, which is the first of a new generation of world-class military medical facilities.  We have known for some time that our work fills a niche for art in healthcare settings, as the healthcare industry moves towards evidence-based design (EBD).   Incorporating the visual arts in the healthcare environment is a fundamental component of EBD, with proven benefits for patients, family and staff, translating into measurable outcomes in health, well-being, and cost of care. (see our recent blogpost on this topic).

Healthcare Design Magazine recently published a case study of the art at Fort Belvoir.  According to the article, “HDR established a design imperative to bring the outdoors in, and so provided the common areas with access to daylight as well as views to the forests and river beyond the site and to the campus grounds and gardens. Both the abundance of external views and the nature-based motifs of each pavilion are key components of biophilic design, the deliberate attempt to translate an understanding of the inherent human affinity with nature in the built environment.”

Read the full article here.

The piece measures 54″ w x 108″ h.  It is glazed in cashew, pumpkin, adobe, honey, moss, medium jade and bark.

Tree of Life, handmade, ceramic wall art tile

handmade, ceramic wall art tile by Natalie Blake Studios

Natalie writes:

Bev and I met five years ago at the American Craft Council show in Baltimore where she gave me a deposit and told me she didn’t think she would ever find the kind of backsplash she was looking for, but had a hunch I might be able to make it for her. I had just started making tiles at that point and the first pieces were small squares with flowers and leaves on them. She was a ways off at that point from having her kitchen remodeled, and a couple of years later finally started asking me for glaze colors and sketches as her renovations were coming to completion. The final renovations took a while to be punch listed, and so we had yet another year and a half to think about design, and for me to create some of the glaze colors that Bev was hoping for. She wanted a purple backsplash. I hoped I wouldn’t have to make a completely purple piece, and in the end we realized that some blue and cashew colors would most suit the beautiful granite countertop fleck tones in the counters she had found.

Players, custom backsplash tile by Natalie Blake STudios

Last February I finally visited the house, as she was truly ready, and we agreed on colors and concept. I was to work with a painting by Anatole Kraznyansky Russian artists that they had bought while on a cruise. While I said I wasn’t interested in reading directly off this imagery, I was willing to take that image in and bounce off it to create my own feedback loop of imagery in response to this painting. And so I went home to my studio, rolled out white paper, measured out my tile sizes, and then stared at the paper. I stared for a couple of days and found myself quickly filling in images that appeared on the paper as I sat and waited. This was a most enjoyable process and felt very easeful. It was as if these figures wanted to come out on the page and be seen. The energy lines coming off these mythical figures moves from the center outward creating butterfly wing vibrations on the left of the piece and a storm at sea on the right side of the piece.

Players, custom backsplash tile by Natalie Blake STudios

The mythical goddess/queen figure, who showed up to me as benevolent and compassionate with powerful ram horns which give her the power gift of reverence and might, can be seen as flying in horizontal position holding a point of energy with her left hand that can be seen as either holding the cacophony of wind and storm tumult at bay, or pulling the source of that storm of energy along with her.  She is holding a tiny sailboat in her right hand. She holds it near the lute player whose large cloaked arm holds a feminine character in his sleeve. His face is the King’s face that can be found in the three faced musician facing right (the figure’s left). The other two musicians are playing a ukelele type instrument and a double-headed woodwind that blows the monarch butterfly wing sound waves.

On the left hand side of the kitchen, I created a single musician standing alone playing with energy lines coming out from the top of his head and cascading away to the left. He plays a double barreled lute like instrument that I am not even sure exists, but I found some interesting images on line with this kind of shape. Beautiful instruments!!!  He has a black face and to me seems to be playing perhaps some sort of jazz.  There are nine faces in the main backsplash, which happens to be my lucky number.

Installing backsplash tile