If you look through pictures from my recent trip to Italy, a pattern will emerge among my photos-windows, doors, floors, windows, doors, floors. There are very few photos of a building, structure, or place in its entirety. What is this about?! This photo pattern isn't limited to my recent trip, it's the same with all the images I take from any travels or experiences. Why am I so drawn to the details of a place? What is it about these smaller parts of a bigger whole that are the things I remember about the places most special to me? Is it just me that finds a connection in the details?

I took my questions to Google (for some reason, I need to feel that I'm not alone in how I think and feel about things) and I came away with a few helpful tidbits that I'll share in a bit, but I realized that this attachment to details may be something that is personal and specific to me, and that's okay, because it is me that is having these experiences. One of my Google searches confirmed this realization in an article from a psychology journal where the author says that our emotions are like a highlighter pen that emphasizes certain details that make the overall experience more memorable. This helped me make sense of my need to capture and savor the details of a place. Because my emotions are tied to these places and experiences, my memory (and camera) have "highlighted" the details. Much like when I highlight something I've read in a book, the highlighted passage is what I remember when I recall the book and it is the details I recall when I think of the places and experiences that have created my story.

These very details I refer to that have become the primary subject of my tiles. The windows, doors, floor tiles, even the floral tiles are details from specific places that are the most special-places I've traveled and places that I call home. From an art composition perspective, it could be said that my tiles lack depth because I just show one surface plane. The entire tile may be just a wall with a window, a front facade and door, or just the floor tile design where I've stood, but just that one facet calls up so much more in my memory of the whole-the conversations, the people, the tastes, and the sounds. I read somewhere in my Google search that we only retain 10% of the things we see, so maybe for me, these little details are my 10% of what I retain. All I need is to see the detail to remind me of the whole experience.

I tend to forget the connection I have to the feeling of spring until it arrives again each year. As soon as the days get longer, I feel a shift in energy all around from the excitement that the easy days of summer are so close. This time of year reminds me that there are specific sights, places, smells, sounds, and emotions we relate with each season. The scent of new flowers blooming, neighbors beginning to cut their grass, and warm potting soil combined with the sounds of my girls playing outside longer each day, lawnmowers, birds, and breezes that create the unmistakable feel of spring. It's these ties to spring that gave me the idea to try out a new process combining the carving element of printmaking on a new series of floral clay tiles.

If you've read earlier blog posts, you know that the tiles I create share little parts of the places that make my story. The new tiles I've been working on are just the same in that they are sweet, little parts of places that are very special to me. Each floral tile depicts a flower that I identify with the homes where I grew up, where we first lived as a family, and where we live and visit now.

The first flower in this series is the pink camellia that grows outside my aunt Polly's kitchen window, and this flower is first because it reminds me so much of this exact time of year. Growing up, the first full April weekend meant I'd be at my aunt Polly's because my parents would head down to Augusta for the Masters. I'd spend the weekend outside for hours on a four-wheeler making lap after lap around her house where I'd pass by her camellia bush full of huge, pink camellias. I can't picture these flowers without seeing her waving at me from the kitchen sink window just next to the camellia bush because she always seemed to be right there, watching and washing dishes (now that I'm a mom, I'm pretty sure she was using the dishes as a reason to stand at the window and make sure I behaved on the four-wheeler). Now, whenever I see a full camellia bush, I remember the exact feel of those weekends--the sound of the Masters on in the living room, the sun setting later, and my aunt Polly at the kitchen window. I made sure that when we moved to our house in the spring of 2012, a camellia bush was the first thing I planted.

I'm so excited to share more about the people and places that have inspired this series, and I've loved talking to friends who already have a connection to other flowers to come. Those conversations are my exact hope for h.made studio--that others will recognize bits of their story in my work and want to make my tiles a part of their home.

h.made studio stories

the story behind the details

the story of a new season and new things