Check out this wonderful new work by Xenia as well as a visit to her ceramic studio in the May/June issue of b.a.h. Magazine. Click here and go to pages 12-17.

New work by Xenia Taler, our artist that works in ceramics. So beautiful. See her studio here.

–Lilla

Click here to read Part I of Xenia’s trip with Aid to Artisans to El Salvador.

Xenia continues:
“Here are some finished samples. These ornaments also make up part of a mobile.

Tabletop Trees.

Cheeseboards.

More cheeseboard handles.

Village Candlesticks.

Bird Ornaments

…and many more.
The collection Jill and I designed will be available through Aid to Artisans. Anyone interested should contact Iris Huezo at iris_huezo@aidtoartisans.org

All-in-all this was just about my ideal creative experience. I was able to work with a new material, have a complete workshop at my disposal, collaborate with a great designer, and meet new people. And all in a beautiful setting with perfect weather.

Michelle Esmeralda (on the right) and friend posing on some work in progress.

I only wish that I had had more time to absorb the local style and develop a collection based on Fernando Llort’s original images. You can see his influence all over the village, on lamp posts, walls and houses.

He is also well known for designing the facade of the Metropolitan Cathedral in San Salvador.

Hopefully, I will have a chance to go back some day and work again with the people of La Palma. So long El Salvador!

The national tree of El Salvador: El Balsamo Y Maquilishuat

….and now, four months later I have just been asked to develop another collection for the La Palma artisans! Sadly, I won’t be traveling to El Salvador this time, but I am really happy to have this chance to build on the previous collection and to do something in the ‘La Palma’ style.”

Wednesday: Lilla’s Arlington Children’s Center sign

Xenia writes us:
Last December I traveled to El Salvador with Aid to Artisans and ceramic designer Jill Rosenwald. We were commissioned to work with the artisans of La Palma to design a new line of decorative products for the North American market.

The artisans of La Palma are known throughout Latin America for producing wood objects decorated with naïve, folkloric images. The La Palma style was created by El Salvadoran artist Fernando Llort who came to this mountain village in 1972 to escape the political unrest in the rest of the country. Inspired by the setting and people of La Palma he developed a simple iconography of birds, animals, trees, adobe houses, and religious themes that the people of La Palma are still using to decorate wooden crosses, nativity scenes, ornaments and various other decorative and functional objects.

Typical La Palma imagery found on a door.

Jill and I had 5 days to develop preliminary designs for new products and another 5 days on-site to complete them. We were commissioned to create at least 3 collections and at least 15 new items each. The finished products were presented a month later at the New York Gift Fair. Fortunately we had some help from local designer Raquel Giron and local marketing coordinator Iris Huezo who translated for us and generally took care of us.

We e-mailed our designs ahead and wood blanks were prepared from our sketches before our arrival.

Besides creating new designs, I tried to introduce hand painting techniques that would make the artisans’ work more efficient. For their present line of products the design is drawn with a black line and the colors are filled in by hand. This is a very laborious and time consuming process. I tried to use some of the same techniques I use in my own line. First paint a background color, then add the rest of the elements on top. Try to use simple dashes, dots and brushstrokes as much as possible to make the designs easy to reproduce repeatedly.

The workshop we worked in:“El Madero de Jesus”.

Leti working on one of the new designs.

Monday: Xenia’s trip with Aid to Artisans to El Salvador, Part II

Xenia Taler was approached by Barnes & Noble for a stationery collection. Here’s the fabulous result. These are reproductions on paper of her ceramic tiles. The effect is one you can only get with glazes. Not even watercolor can create the quality that is achieved with ceramic glazes. See more of her work here.

Wednesday: Work from a new, fully-illustrated book by Allegra Agliardi.