Custom ceramic tile: Tile Visions

Call it serendipity

I had walked past a tile showroom on Rhode Island Street, in the San Francisco Design Center district, on a number of occasions. This time I stopped in my tracks and walked in the front door. The project I was working on required custom tiles and in front of me was a store full of custom tiles.

Tile Visions

Roger Chetrit is a hand-painted tile artist, his company is called Tile Visions. It was obvious to me, from that initial meeting, that Roger had the skill set and the background to accomplish almost any custom tile challenge. I was about to give a Roger a big challenge.

Roger immigrated to the Bay area from Strasbourg, France, as a teenager, and the connection to France continues to this day. Often, on his return visits to France, Roger makes a point to visit the Louvre, and in particular, a painting by Jacques Loui David, “The coronation of Napoleon.” The brocades and fabric design have inspired Roger to make more intricate designs for his own collection, and the size and scale of the painting has incentivized Roger to work on large scale garden murals for walls and fountains.

Detail from The coronation of Napoleon

The turning point

While at college, Roger worked in a tile store of a family friend. From his interaction with the customers he realized there was a demand for unique and custom tile work. Inspired to develop his art skills, Roger took lessons in the art of classical realism with Charles Becker, and soon after started experimenting with glazes, firing techniques and illustrating techniques, such as hand brushing, stenciling, screening and airbrushing. Tile Visions was born in 1986.

Tile rug

My client had shown me in inspiration picture of a tile floor that imitated a rug. I took my design challenge to Roger. We developed an overall concept , and Roger began the process of making 12" x 12" samples. The first sample was not not working, we needed to step it up or I was not going going to be happy. Roger knew what was needed, he found a bisque tile that had a course canvas texture and adjusted his illustrating technique. The final result shown in the image below was awesome, and far exceeded the image in the inspiration picture.

Tile rug

More serendipity: something completely different

I had just spent part of the day in the San Francisco Design Center district with my client looking for decorative tiles to go onto the main staircase risers and the kitchen stove backsplash. Nothing appealed, and I was wondering if we had set the bar too high. My client had left, so I decided to have a last look on my own, and began to browse through some books on display in one of the showrooms.

One book caught my eye La Sistina Della Maiolica. I had never seen anything like this. An entire 17th century (1615-1617) Sistine ceiling of hand made tile.

I brought the book to my client and she was equally enthralled. The next step was to choose some images and show our find to Roger. Each tile needed to be hand painted and each tile needed a patina. The results of Roger's work were outstanding, as seen in the pictures below.

Tile Visions collections

Roger began selling collections in his own style from his Rhode Island Street showroom from 2000 to 2008. At his current showroom in Redwood City, Roger works predominantly with designers and architects, and always welcomes the challenge to create something unique.