Visit us during Art-A-Whirl 2018 for a mixture of tile, fine art, and craft inspiration! You'll get the opportunity to tour our new factory space, learn more about our process, and play with tile. This year is special because a big group of our Tile Elves will be displaying and selling their personal art pieces and crafts. Our team's creative talent goes far beyond tile! Read everyone's bio below to get excited for this fun day.
Don't forget about this event by signing up on Facebook!
Alyse Emanuel - Oil Painter
In her oil paintings, she uses tonality to investigate three-dimensional space by creating depth with lights and darks. By leaving areas of blank canvas next to areas of paint, she plays with fracturing the image and causing a confusion between figure and ground. This can create a sense of both flatness and depth, making background and subject appear to shift back and forth. It also draws attention to the abstract quality of paint rather than the representation of objects. By emphasizing the importance of all parts of an image and de-emphasizing object labels, like "arm" or "tree", she aims to express a universal, underlying unity that she feels is strongly present in all things.
Ashley Schilling - Ceramic Artist
Ashley is a true ceramic artist at heart. Even after creating handmade tile all day long at our tile factory, Ashley goes home and continues to work with ceramics. She creates amazing pieces like these ceramic shoes. She's a woman after our own heart in the world of ceramics!
Lexi Ames - Fine Illustrator of the Scientific Sort
Art and science share a paramouric existence in Lexi Ames’ work. The cold, crisp, sterility of the textbook illustration is not simply functional and informative, but a branch of the ancient lineage of medical illustration that stretches back some 14,000 years. Traditionally, printed anatomy textbooks and wax models have been highly expensive luxury items, furthering the public from understanding their physiology. Ames’ aim is to create artwork that clearly fits in-the-between as teaching tool, novelty, and accessible science.
"By using disposable, overlooked, ballpoint pen, which can be used to create textures and marks not unlike those of intaglio printing, I produce works that excite and intrigue viewers who may be interested in learning more about how their own bodies function, or the goings-on of the natural world." ~Lexi Ames
These desires, along with interest in American humbug, the process of rot, modern and historic death practices, and the golden age of professional wrestling, fuel Ames’ pursuit of visual storytelling in the medium of magnificent function and grotesque disease.
Luke Sybilrud - Multimedia Artist
“The works I create are my sole attempts to relate, in the hope someone sees me of worth.” - Cele
Not only is Luke one of the most fun and friendliest guys we know, but his artwork is truly one-of-a-kind. It's fun to see the world through Luke's eyes and that is just what he shows you through his expression with color and texture. Make sure you also have a friendly conversation with him when you stop by during Art-A-Whirl, you won't regret it!
Andrea Risjord - Multimedia Artist
Andrea Risjord’s work incorporates textiles, paper, gauche, and found objects. Drawing inspiration from historical sources and nature itself, she creates small treasures enclosed in shadow boxes as well as embroidered stitch-on patches. She values the understanding of a pollinator’s role in the life cycle and the appreciation of all creatures that act as pollinators. All of her works are created in an effort to increase awareness and appreciation of pollinators as well as the beauty in nature that is often overlooked.
Joel Jannetto - Multimedia Artist
Joel Jannetto makes stream of consciousness drawings, which birth abstracted characters and other interesting forms. He places them within imagined environments; the environments are typically fantastical landscapes or manic psychedelic color fields. He is trying to figure out origin stories and relationships among these figures, as well as illustrate ideas that have already been plotted in the ever-expanding web of his made up universe.
Louie-Paulo Darang - Interdisciplinary Artist
Louie-Paulo Darang is a Filipinx-American interdisciplinary artist currently based in Minneapolis. His eclectic practice includes oil painting and cast metal sculpture, through which he explores the visual poetics of abstraction & spirituality in meditative images & objects.
Molly Miller - Multimedia Artist
Molly Miller is a self-taught artist, originally from Palmer, Alaska. Molly grew up surrounded by nature and wildlife, and these elements serve as continuous inspiration for her work. Marine life and fungi are two of her favorite subjects to explore; she often juxtaposes these themes with women and bold color to evoke a sense of growth and strength.
Randi Steingold - Ceramic Artist
Randi Steingold uses her background in Interior Design to create beautiful, modern compositions in her ceramic jewelry and visual art. She begins by sketching her designs, which consist of an organic mix of geometric shapes and patterns, with natural and spiritual influences. Each piece is made by hand, formed from clay, to create a variety of meaningful designs, ranging from earrings to wall art. Steingold loves using her designer prowess to make visual representations of the things which inspire her.
Taylor Rose - Multimedia Artist
Taylor Rose is a 2016 graduate of the University of Minnesota with her degree in Art History. While her degree informs an academic understanding of the arts, it is the applied forms of art-making which most interest and impassion her. Her portfolio is diverse and demonstrative of her far-reaching interests in the field--from intricate hyper-realism to non-objective abstraction, from boldly tufted embroidery and fiber to delicate botanical illustration. With ever-evolving tastes and aesthetic inclinations, consistent throughout all of Taylor's work is the inherent questioning of art itself and an innate sense for the joy of making.
Sarah Riley - Portrait Artist
Sarah Riley is inspired by the human form and all of its diversity and fascination. Her portraits consist both of faces that she has imagined and people whom she admires for their artistic endeavors and overall significance in her life and this world. When Riley creates a portrait of someone, she strives not only to capture a physical likeness, but to also incorporate elements of the subject’s personality and demeanor; it proves a unique challenge every time, and she absolutely loves it. Riley’s figural work is deeply rooted in the concept of ‘body positivity;’ her hope and underlying goal is for the viewers of this series to feel empowered, validated, and secure in their own unique beauty.
Zak Shaw - Woods Craftsman
Zak Shaw is a hobbyist carver, having only recently discovered the craft as a relaxing way to slow down, to sit, and to focus his time and energy. He is at once inspired by an inherent love of nature, trees, and woodgrain, and also the utilitarian practicality of making useful tools. Zak considers himself not an artist, but a craftsperson—a skilled maker and producer of wooden goods.
Kali Erinn - Multidisciplinary Artist
Kali Erinn is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist working predominantly in drawing and painting with ink and watercolor, although she also sometimes dabbles in the world of bookmaking. She is constantly looking for new ways to learn and grow and, in true millennial fashion, try her best to make a difference.
Monica Brosi - Minature Maker
Monica Brosi is an introvert fascinated by human connection. Through her struggle to understand how and why people can and need to connect with one another, she fixates on the small and delicate to create a temporary escape. Brosi specializes in miniature ceramic sculpture which may lovingly be described as “cute.” Her pieces are smooth to the touch and pleasant against the fingertips. Upon further inspection, near-obsessive attention to detail is discovered; one can almost feel the artist holding her breath. These details become pivotal components within the symmetry of a piece, and as the viewer observes they are invited to transition from an outside perspective to a realm of interaction. Her hope is that viewers will allow themselves to be drawn in with the same level of focus she gives her creatures, and form a connection through that specific and momentary fixation.
Dates & Times:
Friday, May 18th – 5:00-10:00 p.m.
Saturday, May 19th – Noon-8:00 p.m.
Sunday, May 20th – Noon-5:00 p.m.
Address:
1620 Central Ave NE, Suite 125
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55413
