Miles of Tiles - Archetectural Artifacts, Post 4

Okay, finally getting out of the loos.

Like I said before, this place takes pieces of buildings and resells them. There were racks and racks of ceramic and stone tiles to use in bathrooms or kitchen backsplashes or as decoration around fireplaces.

Miles of Tiles

As I mentioned, we couldn't use tripods, so doing a narrow aperture with a long shutter wasn't an option nearly as often as I wanted it to be.  For this one, I was able to take one tile, set it on top of the first row of tiles, tilt my camera against it, set a two second timer (so I wouldn't jostle it) and let it go.  This is actually a 15 second exposure at f20.

Piles of Tiles that Traveled for Miles

As you can see there are whole sets of tiles, just in case you're thinking of redoing your shower.  On the flip side, they aren't cheap.  I'm kind of curious how they end up with tons and tons of English tiles, purchased in Argentina and then resold in Chicago. They *look* mass-produced, but I don't know much about antique tiles, so maybe I'm wrong.

Old Orchid Ornaments

These are the ones that really break my brain.  They look so much like the kind of thing I could have made (and others did for that matter) in my park district ceramics lab.

 $75 a linear foot.  Each tile is a little more than a foot long.  So they're roughly $100 each.  They say 'glass', but they seemed like ceramic to me.  I do find it interesting that they still have some of the grout/cement on the edges from their last home.  I'd imagine whoever buys these $100 tiles will have to somehow scrape all that off without damaging the piece.  Good luck with that.

Seriously Expensive Cermaic Stripes

Now this boggles my brain.  It's roughly an 8 inch square ceramic tile wiht some raised stripes, underglazed in teal and then washed down a bit and then overglazed in clear.  I know exactly how this was done.  I'm pretty sure that with the right materials I could do this exact piece.  $65.  Really?  And there's no more data readily available, like this came out of some French palace or something that would give the simple tile a better 'pedigree'.

Earthquake Survivors?

These were over $100 each.  And I get it, in that they're hand drawn tiles.  BUT, they're all cracked and broken, chipped and dirty.  I'd love to see how they'd somehow end up getting used, because none of them are exactly square any more and many of them have cracks running through them, like in the lower left hand corner.  The one on the right doesn't even have the image centered on the tile.  So, they're interesting, but I'm not sure how they'll sell, because I'm not sure how they become reusable.

Okay, tomorrow, the coolest table full of crystal bits ever.