Meet artist Elany Prusa of Pacific Blue Tile.  Elany is one of over 35 artists showing at the 39th annual Artisans Festival, Thanksgiving Weekend at the Miners Foundry Cultural Center.   This holiday tradition features Northern California’s finest artisans showing original, hand-crafted art.  Meet the artisans and makers.  Expect to find the extraordinary at this show.  November 29 – December 1, 10am-5pm, $3 daily admission, $5 weekend pass.

I am the artist for our family’s small hand painted tile business for 30 years.  I start out making a pencil line drawing of my design which we then make into a silkscreen. My husband then screens a mixture of wax resist and black colorant (manganese) through the silkscreen lines onto a plain ceramic 6”x6” tile.  This is done manually one tile at a time.  When dry I am able to paint & color scheme the tile and fire it to see how it comes out.  Sometimes this involves 10 or more “test” firings therefore 10 more days as it takes a kiln one day to fire and cool off again.  After that we use my chosen color scheme and paint each tile individually one tile at a time using ceramic glazes.  We then fire in our kiln to 1800o and the tiles turn into a beautiful, shiny and durable work of art or for use as a hot plate.

My husband also hand makes misshapen ceramic plates as background canvases for me to do one-of-a-kind original ceramic paintings onto.  We also do large 15/20 tile mural scenes which utilize the same techniques.  I have made all of my tile designs into individual magnets as well – trying to tap into the less expensive gift market. (photos in catalog)  I also started a new line of Dog Design tiles which have become quite popular and I now have 36 different breeds and counting.