Block Shop x Fireclay Tile is a collaboration between two California Makers inspired by the creative spirits of women artists who helped pave the way for today's modern visual culture.
Combining the artisanal techniques of traditional woodblock printing and handpainted tile, we’ve created four distinct patterns, each highly configurable for a personalized and interactive design experience.
Collaborated on mostly over many Zoom calls throughout 2020 lockdowns from our makeshift home offices in the Los Angeles and Bay Area, and handmade entirely in our eco-friendly California Factory, this collection is the joyful result of two teams of craftspeople that center creativity and compassion with beautiful design.
Block Shop x Fireclay Tile Handpainted Collection
Meet Block Shop
Block Shop Textiles is the creation of sisters Hopie and Lily Stockman, who following a trip to India fell in love with the traditional woodblock printing of the regions they traveled to. The two forged relationships with master makers in Jaipur and Panipat, designing home goods from their home base in Los Angeles and producing them in India with the skills and methods local craftspeople have honed and passed down over hundreds of years.
Divided by continents, the Stockman sisters found common ground among their Indian partners. Their geometric patterns are as much inspired by the Art Deco buildings of historic downtown Los Angeles as the 70’s movie palaces in Jaipur. Their palette is rooted in the desert hues of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan and California’s Mojave Desert, where they spend time designing and hosting block printing workshops.
As two California companies, we couldn’t wait to collaborate with Block Shop, but where we live and work is just the start of our similarities. Fundamentally, we’re makers, each obsessed with process, making products thoughtfully, and investing in our communities.
Fusing Crafts
There’s a beautiful connection in pattern layout across tile and woodblock printing. In block printing, wooden blocks are stamped across textiles to create an all-over pattern, literally “tiled” across the textile. The simple limitations of size and repeat style across both tile and wooden blocks open up the imagination to so many thrilling combinations and possibilities.
This wealth of possibility and personalization is at the heart of the Block Shop x Fireclay Tile Handpainted Collection. Each handmade, handpainted tile is completely one-of-a-kind and each pattern is designed to offer virtually limitless configuration.
Learn how we brought the spirit of Block Shop Textiles to our handmade tile.
Handpainted Shown: Dot Dash 2
Handpainted Shown:Signal in Clay Motif
Handpainted Shown: Squiggle in Lapis Motif
Shared Values
Fireclay and Block Shop share an aligned design sensibility and obsession with technical process details, and we had so much fun drawing new patterns that worked both visually—pattern, color, texture—and practically from a production and installation perspective. We both believe in small batch production, traditional techniques, and handmade, one-of-a-kind products.
But beyond our process and products, our aligned purpose is what makes such kindred companies.
Both of us share philosophies on how we love and care for our customers, consider our environmental impact, and believe in a timeless product. From paying our makers a living wage, using recycled materials in our manufacturing and giving our time, talent, and resources to our communities, we’re both joyful leaders using business as a force for good.
Inspiring Women
Peel back the block prints, the silkscreens, the reams of sketches and renderings, the ribbons of clay, and what you’ll find in this collection is a story of women. This collaboration was spearheaded between Block Shop’s founders Hopie and Lily Stockman, and Fireclay's Creative Director Jamie Chappell, artists inspired throughout their lives by women who helped pave the way for today's visual culture and inclusivity in the arts.
Georgia O’Keefe, Mavis Pusey, Alma Siedhoff-Buscher, Bridget Riley, women who unquestionably influenced art and women’s ability to express their own, informed the patterns and motivated our cooperation through the pandemic, through fire evacuations, through halted production, through loss, through pregnancies, and through the highs and lows of operating our respective businesses. Each of their legendary legacies is distilled into this celebratory collection, both inspired and designed by women artists.
Liz, Fireclay Ceramic Lab Assistant
Paying It Forward
In honor of those women artists who led the way through the 20th century to make this collaboration possible, we’re donating 5% of all sales to Allies in Arts to support the next generation of courageous creatives.
Allies in Arts is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Los Angeles whose mission is to support artists who are womxn, BIPOC, and LGBTQQIA2S — all of whom are underrepresented individuals in creative industries.
Express Yourself!
Browse Block Shop x Fireclay Tile
Handpainted Shown: Signal in clay motif
Ready to bring out your inner artist? Explore the patterns, follow the process that brought them to life, discover the possibilities at play and learn more about our partnership with Allies in Arts. We make the tiles, you make it art!
