I continued reading Chevalier's book, and noticed that the narrator, Griet, has a very strong tie to her father's Delft style ceramic tiles he made before he lost his eyes in the kiln explosion. Her father painted scenes of daily life, of Griet and her siblings, or of landscapes and many other things. Ships, you name it. In the 1600s, that was how her family was able to keep themselves fed and whatnot.
I am taking a ceramics class right now, and in that class we had a semester project that allowed us to choose our own time period and create anything we chose. I traveled to England over the summer, and I wanted to do something involving my zillions of pictures I took. So I looked up the Delftware that I saw in museums and things while overseas and I loved the blue and white style used in tilemaking, so that is what I chose to do. I thought it was ironic that a huge part of Griet's life was something I had been reading up on for the past few months. At the moment I am still painting the Tower of London onto my panographic tiles, meaning that my tiles are all different sizes and shapes in order to include the whole picture. It has taken me a long time to paint, so I can relate to the tediousness of Griet's father's tiles. And with as much work as I have put into my own, I shared Griet's remorse for the breaking of her favorite tile given to her by her father. When it is fired, the blues will run together to create a picture that I cannot imagine, and I can guess that is how Griet felt about her tile: it is priceless. I have included some examples of what I am trying to accomplish, found through:
Second Image
The first two are images of the pre-fired tiles. The last one is a picture of a drawing before I started the project.
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