Ceramic Mosaics, Paintings
Susan Jarvis
STUDIO INFO
Overhills Studio will be open during the Craft Tour. The studio is located on the first floor of historic Overhills, including examples of exquisite mosaic installations; kiln-barn and extensive grounds will be open for wandering as well.
Address: 31 Overhills, Putney
How to purchase my work
Paintings, tiles, and sculptures are available for purchase during the tour and via my website any time. Consultations for personalized home mosaics may be scheduled via email, at your location or mine.
I transform the histories and stories of objects, people and places into beautiful, complex paintings, sculptures, and custom mosaic tilework. My aesthetic library is the complex ideas and imagery embedded in human lives and the natural world.
Ceramic Mosaics, Paintings and More
I work in a variety of art media. At this year’s tour, ceramic tiles, sculptures, holiday ornaments, and oil paintings will be available for purchase, and examples of custom home mosaics will be on display.
I engage with and draw from images and motifs embedded in a rich history of human intellect and creativity, seeking to reveal our collective consciousness in vibrant color and aesthetic harmony with place.
The work of the custom home mosaic is deeply personal for me. I enjoy talking with clients so that your piece—signage, interior design features like kitchen back-splashes or shower stall, or garden benches—may be individualized to your interests, obsessions, locations, and palate. Consultations may be scheduled at the craft tour or via email so that together we can collaborate and discover the beautiful and unique designs that will complement your life.
Overhills
On the slopes of Holland Hill with sweeping 100-mile views east to Mount Monadnock and New Hampshire, Overhills is a spectacular 1896 home designed by Boston architect, Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow (nephew of Henry) for Mary Parker Follet, the mother of modern management theory and creator of the “win-win solution.” The studio, on the ground floor of the house, gardens and kiln-barn will all be open during the craft tour.
My favorite crafting tool
In the broadest sense of the word, my favorite tool is the library. Whether I’m painting in oils, sculpting holiday ornaments or tiles, or customizing mosaic fireplace surrounds, signs, shower stalls, and kitchen backsplashes, I seek information and ideas from sources including books and documents, and the histories and stories of objects and people and places. For example, when designing a gas fireplace insert surround, I studied the history of the large Persian Serapi rug on the floor before the hearth, sketching the flowers and vases motif and experimenting with glaze colors to create a unique art tile mosaic echoing the room’s most prominent feature. A kitchen backsplash with an avian motif required research into the birds of the region, their habits and habitats. Similarly, my paintings series are thematic, grounded in history, theory and ideas, and including juxtapositions of imagery, text, advertisements, documents, and a complex range of cultural wisdom, all collected and repurposed and repositioned through visual representation.