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Where Color Meets Craft Original Ceramic Tile

Where Color Meets Craft: Reintroducing Original Ceramic Tile

See Featured Blog →
New traditional bathroom floor subway green tile 3

Nicholas Potts: Historic Primary Bathroom

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  • Kitchen + Backsplash
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  • Floor Tile
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  • Commercial Use
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2023 img hi res full usage design Atypical design Studio photo jordan Layton wainscott offset cardamom 3x9 floor tile iron ore 2 hexagon FC596427 1

Original Ceramic tiles showcase handmade qualities with unique variations in color, crazing, and finish.

  • All Original Ceramic Colors
  • Studio Glazes New
  • Ceramic Stains New
  • Shop Shapes
  • Shop Patterns
  • Trim + Architectural Moldings
Resources
  • All Resources
  • Spec Sheet
  • Installation Guide
  • Design Files
  • Guide to Tile Trim

Your first 5 color samples are FREE through a rep

BOOK AN APPOINTMENT BROWSE ALL SAMPLES
2024 residential full usage 4x4 terre verte satin red jasper satin indigo satin 2x2 red jasper satin bathroom checkerboard straight set 6x12 cove base indigo satin Pluck Architecture Leonid Furmansky FC796720 2

Our budget-friendly ceramics line, Natural Press is made with your largest indoor and outdoor projects in mind.

  • All Natural Press Colors
  • Shop Shapes
Resources
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Your first 5 color samples are FREE through a rep

BOOK AN APPOINTMENT BROWSE ALL SAMPLES
Modern blue subway wall glass tile 2

Our radiant Glass Tile provides a freshness that pairs perfectly with today’s modern designs indoors or out.

  • All Glass Colors
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Resources
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Your first 5 color samples are FREE through a rep

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Your first 5 color samples are FREE through a rep

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Shop All Nine Collections
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Resources
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Your first 5 color samples are FREE through a rep

BOOK AN APPOINTMENT BROWSE ALL SAMPLES
Glazed Thin Brick Destination Eichler Blue Brick Fireplace

Brick’s hand-mixed glazes enrich its surface, delicately exposing its unique textures and variations with the colors of the environment around us.

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Your first 5 color samples are FREE through a rep

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2022 img hi res full rights residential photo design plural design studio bathroom floor tile mini star and cross antique white grout FC 407104 2

Our bestselling tile products all ready to ship in five days or less.

  • All Quick Ship Tile
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Budget-Friendly Tile
  • $12 Essentials
  • $18 Foundations
  • Factory Sale
Trade callout

As a member you’ll receive exclusive access to new products, a professional discount, plus personalized service from our trade team who can help bring your vision to life.

Learn More →
Residential Specifiers
  • Find Your Rep
  • Custom Projects
  • Design Packages
Commercial Specifiers
  • Find Your Rep
  • Custom Projects
  • Commercial Pricing
  • 2025 Resource Book
Meet Your Partners
  • Virtual CEU
Enscape 2025 04 08 12 57 54

Visualize our tile in your space with our comprehensive design packages.

Design Packages
  • All Design Packages
  • Bathroom
  • Kitchen
  • Fireplace
  • Pool + Fountain
Custom Tile
  • Our Custom Capabilities
  • Book A Free Consultation
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Where Color Meets Craft Original Ceramic Tile

Where Color Meets Craft: Reintroducing Original Ceramic Tile

See Featured Blog →
New traditional bathroom floor subway green tile 3

Nicholas Potts: Historic Primary Bathroom

See Featured Gallery →
Blog
  • All Blog Posts
  • Design + Inspiration
  • Project Spotlight
  • Tile School
Gallery
  • All Gallery Entries
  • Bathroom
  • Kitchen
  • Commercial
Where Color Meets Craft Original Ceramic Tile

Where Color Meets Craft: Reintroducing Original Ceramic Tile

See Featured Blog →
New traditional bathroom floor subway green tile 3

Nicholas Potts: Historic Primary Bathroom

See Featured Gallery →
Blog
  • All Blog Posts
  • Design + Inspiration
  • Project Spotlight
  • Tile School
Gallery
  • All Gallery Entries
  • Bathroom
  • Kitchen
  • Commercial
Where Color Meets Craft Original Ceramic Tile

Where Color Meets Craft: Reintroducing Original Ceramic Tile

See Featured Blog →
New traditional bathroom floor subway green tile 3

Nicholas Potts: Historic Primary Bathroom

See Featured Gallery →
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  3. An Idea Takes Shape for the New Milpitas BART Station

Company News

An Idea Takes Shape for the New Milpitas BART Station

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Model of a column being made for the Milpitas BART station

The Milpitas BART Station is on its way to becoming a reality. The longest in length, this station will be the main transfer point between Oakland and downtown San Jose, CA. We couldn't be more thrilled to be a part of it, and over the next few weeks we'll be sharing what it takes for a company like ours to collaborate on a custom project of this magnitude.

We were brought onboard the BART project by local San Francisco artist, Amy Trachtenberg, who has been awarded a public works commission to create an art piece for the station, which she has named, 'Ecstatic Voyaging'. Drawn to the monolithic columns throughout history, she chose the underground columns as her canvas, and tile as the ideal cladding. Working in the earliest design stage with VBN, station architect, Trachtenberg reshaped the structural columns into a ziggurat form to provide a solid geometry for her tile concept.

Above, a beginning sketch, an idea takes hold.

Trachtenberg had Fireclay Tile in mind as a partner from the beginning. Our founder, Paul Burns, was on her radar and she was eager to investigate. Initially the beauty of our product was the magnet, but several other factors convinced Amy to choose us among other Bay Area tile makers. Trachtenberg was deeply impressed by Paul’s various areas of expertise in the craft of ceramics and tile making. "While the local and historic underpinning to the company’s history was a factor, I was blown away by both the overall ethos of the company and innovative means of advancing recycling into the Fireclay process. The factory setting was in proximity to my Santa Clara Valley station project making for less of a carbon footprint when fabrication and installation were to take place," she says.

Trachtenberg imagined a crossroads and jewel-like station with a flow of tile ornamentation on the twenty freestanding columns with a colorful glazing of the overhead concrete arches connecting the pieces. The timeless material of terracotta tile on innovative forms would reflect a palette traditional to transit stations. The ceramic glazing techniques would be two-fold, employing screen printing and the sense of the artists 'hand'.

An idea evolves.

"Paul's willingness to troubleshoot and allow broad but systematic experimentation with my project ideas has been unparalleled. In early tests of collaging with screen prints onto the tile, I began to arrive at ways to use historic patterns from Fireclay's studio to incorporate with my larger original patterns," says Trachtenberg.

Over time, images are enlarged, edited, dropped and exchanged as the final design begins to emerge.

Finally the scale of the pattern is set.

“Ecstatic Voyaging” is more of an experience than an object. Borrowing from the language of textiles and patchwork, the art piece is a view of overlapping worlds as the twenty polychromatic columns build a singular flow of bold patterning. Reading on multiple levels, the artwork is reflective of both the cultivated and natural landscape of Santa Clara Valley, a metaphor for the various histories and cultural overlays of Milpitas, a city in transition where twenty-six languages are spoken. The passenger in the moving train will be struck by the surprise of color and surface of the ziggurat shaped columns. The tile medium will both sparkle and perform with the durability well known in ageless architectural wonders as The Alhambra in Spain and The Topkapi Palace in Istanbul," says Trachtenberg.

A lot of thought goes into the image viewed close up verses from a distance, the feeling a traveler will have waiting for the train, as opposed to the visual they will get as a passenger as the train moves in and out of the station. The idea is ready to become reality at the Fireclay factory.

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