Journal Entry No. 14

I grew up in a house with tiles everywhere. They were on all the usual surfaces: floors, bathroom walls and the kitchen splash but they were also in unusual places: the kitchen countertop, window sills, table tops and wall decor. For Italians, tile has been a go-to surfacing product since ancient Rome (timeless decor anyone?). Personally, growing up Italian and with a tile-setter father, this meant tile is quite literally in my blood and under my fingernails.

My father had many careers (film editor, stills photographer, stage director amongst others) but he loved tile and often brought his work home: upon returning home from a trip to Sicily with mamma, babbo (Tuscan form of 'dad') had tiled my bedroom floor in terracotta tiles as well as the window sills in a beautiful composition of 2"x2" remnants that he hand cut to size by hand. He was an artisan. I would sometimes go with him to job sites, learning to set tiles and grout them at a young age. He'd show me how to plan a layout, where to start and how to ensure there wouldn't be any undesired sizes. I use these early teachings everyday as I design for client’s homes.

I had my own, archival fascination with tile as a child. Often walking through olive groves on hot afternoons, I would scoop up shards of discarded tiles amongst the rocky soil and carry them back to my room to dream. Gorgeous bright colours of watery blue, emerald greens and those oh so enchanting patterns, only partially available to me on the small shard, would set my mind alight with what the full pattern could possibly look like. These tiles would often make the trip back to Vancouver in my suitcase and I have many of them still; nicely worn down from their days in the olive tree groves or at the bottom of terracotta pots for pelargoniums and annuals. I rediscover them when I change out the soil in spring and recall the delight I first had when coming across these design relics.

When designing my home I naturally gravitated to tile for high-traffic areas , choosing reminders of those lively patterns and colours. My entry floor is a gorgeous black and white scroll design in encaustic tile, perhaps a slight nod to ancient Rome in it's terrazzo-esque style. The laundry floor tile is colourful and graphic, a nod to Sicily, and our kitchen splash has a subtle crackle glaze to it reminding me of the aged tiles I’d scoop up in the fields.

Tile is a link to history: whether Italian, Spanish, Dutch or otherwise, tile has been made in roughly the same way for centuries and I consider it an honour to work with a material that has such depth of story. With so many options for colour, pattern, shape and size, tile is also a tickle trunk for the imagination - anything is possible! It’s an opportunity to design your own story, to lay it down on floors, on walls and perhaps the occasional wall mosaic, if so inclined…