PRAIRIE MILE TILEWORKS

Let there be nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

This statement by John Ruskin, whose writings strongly influenced the leaders of the Arts & Crafts Movement, has had a similar effect on Su Harvey, the designer behind Prairie Mile Tileworks. The philosophies of Ruskin, Morris, Tiffany and like-minded artists have guided her work from the beginning. Making art that is both beautiful and useful is her natural inclination, and one that she chooses to indulge.

Employing a combination of methods; ancient, traditional, and modern, and often developing her own techniques, Prairie Mile Tileworks creates tiles that have the same sense of timelessness, usefulness and beauty as in historic tile-work. The tiles are made of a porcelain/stoneware clay body. Each tile is made by hand, one at a time. The glazes have an inherent variability and a rich, tactile surface, not unlike those used in Arts & Crafts ceramics. They are fired to over 2,200 degrees in state-of-the-art computerized kilns. Firing in an oxidation atmosphere maintains a balance between the changeable nature of the hand-forming methods and glazes used, and the need to create a series of coordinating pieces. Working in this manner imbues each piece with the ‘mark of the hand’ and insures that no two tiles are ever identical.