August 02, 2006
Cuerda Seca
Here's another example of an interesting bit of knowledge gained from doing research on different aspects of the remodeling we are in middle of. As I said earlier, there are some decorative aspects that I could imagine, but couldn't seem to locate anywhere. As a rule, I think you could say that I didn't conjure these patterns and colors out of thin air, so it has always been a case of having to dig a little deeper to find what I had pictured in my head. The most recent case is tiles decorated using the cuerda seca technique.
Cuerda Seca literally means "dry cord" (or "prudent drought" if you ask Google). Colloquially it's usually translated as "dry line". The technique, as I understand it, is to use a medium such as wax to draw a design on the tile and then "pool" different colors of glaze within the design. When the tiles are fired, the glaze fills the areas delineated by the wax and the wax melts leaving behind a dark line. I've seen the results likened to stained glass. Here is an example of tile created using the cuerda seca technique at el Museo Lázaro Galdiano.
The cuenca ("river basin" according to Google) technique sounds similar, but instead of using a wax type material, a ridge is made in the clay that creates the pooling effect similar to the cuerda seca method. The cuenca tiles sound similar to the decorative tiles we're using from Handcraft Tile. These decorative tiles are glaze and fired, then buffed to take the glaze off the raised areas. The end result is terracotta colored raised areas, and glaze colored depressions. You can find an example of the cuenca technique here at the Florida Museum of Natural History's website.
One of the decorative tiles from Handcraft Tile that we're using:
All of this information gained was borne out of a picture I had in my head. I wanted a certain look to the address on the outside of my house. Somewhere I had seen address tiles done using the cuerda seca technique. Maybe it was during a trip to Spain in 2000. Maybe it was on a walk around the neighborhood.
Either way, I didn't know how to describe what I wanted, so I hadn't found it. Now that I know what the technique is called, there are a number of possible places to find what I want. Coincidentally, another idea I had in my head was installing cuerda seca tiles on the risers of the stairs down to the basement. Before, I had no idea that this was the same look as the address tiles I was seeing in my head. Now I know which direction to go, and learned a little something along the way.
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Posted by Rob at August 2, 2006 08:25 AM