A year and a half ago, the front of the building where I live was being redone. Part of the project was to place new tiles along all of the windows. With the workmen up on scaffolding, they had been able to see into my studio and realize that I worked with a variety of materials. It was in this way that one of them asked me if I would like some extra tiles they had no use for, and in this way that I came to have a new material on which to experiment. Tiles, I soon realized, made for a beautiful, smooth and even background onto which to attach anything from paper and felt to string and sandpaper; liquids, on the other hand, surprised me, becoming quickly absorbed into the tile's pourous surface. In the end, much of what I did was a collaging of materials (on which I had painted or drawn) onto the tile; exceptions are some marks I made with crayon or chalk (these materials stayed on the surface) or areas I painted with chinese ink, a liquid which, although also absorbed, retained its rich and deep blackness.
