2011 Creative Use of Precast Awards
Honorable Mention for Mariachi Plaza
Created custom concrete tile to match stone of the Gazebo.
The judging was extremely close. In most cases, the winning projects were separated from the rest of the projects by less than one point…..The entry [Mariachi Plaza] finished just a fraction of a point behind the third place score, however, and earned a Honorable Mention.
~Bob Whitmore Communications Director NPCA
Still looks like a winner to me. We are very proud to have this Honorable Mention. To see other Civic projects CLICK HERE.
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Gardena California – New Jewelry District
You Don’t Drive a Bentley without a BIG Watch in Malbu
Gardena California’s New Jewelry District
ARTO Tile studio is a division of ARTO that produces hand painted deco tiles, murals and jewelry. These are the true “bling” that accents our concrete line from ARTO and our clay line form Western Quarry. The Tile Studio, started in January of 2012, specializes in historic reproductions of a broad array of designs from Moorish to Malibu.
For the complete story visit:
ARTO Tile Studio
You Got Chocolate in My Peanut Butter
You Got Peanut Butter on My Chocolate
Who Carries Around a Jar of Peanut Butter
Long Beach, CA—Ken Mason Tile (KMT) is set to launch Village Line at Coverings 2012. The Village Line consists of ARTO’s signature rustic concrete tiles with KMT’s staining and waxing process. Handmade tiles are stained (hand rubbed) which leaves the color predominantly in the recesses of each specific piece. His technique adds a generation of patina to the product and gives a protective coating as well. The result is “two great tastes in one.” If you are familiar with Ken Mason then you know this will be impressive. If not, stop by his booth located at #2912.
The truly unique Village Line with its aged and reclaimed look is only available through KMT’s dealers, but will eventually flow through all of ARTO’s dealers this summer. ARTO and KMT’s partnership is still in its infancy, but they have the same values when it comes to the handmade process. No machine can replicate the human hand techniques of KMT and ARTO.
To see ARTO concrete tiles in the raw, please stop by booth #2813.
ARTO Brick and Ca Pavers have been designing and manufacturing rustic elegance since 1966. ARTO creates concrete products for walls, floors and hardscapes, and can be used for interior or exterior applications.
Edible Arabesque
Europe, Islam, Ballet, Debussy, Disco, Peck & Sophia Loren.
Searching for the Meaning
Gardena, CA—The word “arabesque” is as ambiguous as the tile shapes that we produce and call by that same name. When ARTO started to create his “Arabesque,” he knew that he was inspired by Moorish, Celtic, Islamic, Spanish and M.C. Escher, but he did not know what to call them.
These shapes are not new. They are ancient. They are found in nature. No one owns them. So he chose a name that was ambiguous as the shapes themselves.
www.learnersdictionary.com
ar·a·besque
1. [count] : a complicated decorative design made with many lines that curve and cross each other
2. : a ballet position in which the dancer stands on one foot and holds one arm forward while the other arm and leg are held out behind [count] ▪ The students practiced their arabesques.[noncount] ▪ She held her arms in arabesque.
www.merriam-webster.com/
tes·sel·la·tion
1. a : mosaic
b : a covering of an infinite geometric plane without gaps or overlaps by congruent plane figures of one type or a few types
2. : an act of tessellating : the state of being tessellated
If you made it this far to the bottom…
Bring the Press Release to booth #2813 to pick up an arabesque-shaped boutique made TOFFEE, yum!
AND check out our tile in Arabesque shapes.
If you can not make it, for fun enjoy the links & videos below.
Wikipedia Arabesque (European Art)
Arabesque -Friday Night Hit Disco 1978
Debussy, Arabesque #1, Piano Solo
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Clay:
Love/Leather, The Milkman & Concrete
Gardena, CA—Adversity is said to be the mother of invention, the fire that transforms music, art & food. Arto Alajian, a designer born in Cairo, the son of Krikor, an Armenian refugee, began designing & literally cutting tanned leather from Milan. When revolution came to Egypt, he fled to Beirut where he worked for British Airways. When turmoil began there, he set his eyes on North America, landing in New York, Houston, British Columbia, and finally settling down in Venice, California. We are getting closer to tile, hold on.
In Los Angeles, Arto attended school for aviation mechanics, worked for the Adamson Family (of the famed Malibu home) at their Adohr Farms Dairy delivering milk. While starting his new life, he met Irene Berchtenbreiter, a ceramicist that was exhibiting with Peter Volkus & Paul Soldner. Irene made beautiful hand painted ceramic wall murals that were both one-dimensional and three-dimensional. Love & Art connected here as Arto studied to be a ceramicist and developed a thin wall tile that was extruded and unglazed to frame the murals. In 1966, Arto left the dairy and school and founded & produced ARTO BRICK VENEER.
Flash forward to the oil embargo in the early 1970’s; Arto is pushed from ceramic to concrete due to high energy costs. Producing first wall cladding and then floor tile made of concrete. The mother of invention brought to the market high value low cost hand made tile (produced since 1966) in Southern California employing 51 team members at two factories.
Now what?
Wait For it….
ARTO Brick and Ca Pavers have been designing and manufacturing rustic elegance since 1966. ARTO creates concrete products for walls, floors and hardscapes, and can be used for interior or exterior applications.
St. Patrick’s Day 2012
Happy St Patrick’s Day 2012. What is so important about this day?
- It is Arto Alajian’s 83rd Birthday.
- It is the day we incorporated the company.
- And it is the unofficial start of Spring and the building season.
- Lastly, we not only are very appreciative of all our clients and distributors, we are very appreciative of ARTO and all the hardworking people that have dedicated their lives to him as he dedicated his life for us.
We share our picture because we want you to know us. We are genuine and sincere from good morning to start the day till the last piece is made and the last order goes out for the day, real like the sunrise and sunset.
Our employees embody hundreds of years of experience in each room of the factory.
Over the next few weeks our Dealer and Distributors will receive 4 items in the mail to celebrate and share.
First is a postcard of the ARTO Family. We are a family literally and spiritually. On the front is a picture taken on the last Friday of the 2011. Here you can see how our family has grown with the addition of Western Quarry and our ARTO Tile Studio.
Second, you will all receive a Vintage Catalina Tile Deco, Made by Western Quarry and glazed by the ARTO Tile Studio.
Third, Candy. Like our tiles we have commissioned a talented candy maker to handcraft, some of the best peanut brittle you will ever taste, in our new arabesque shapes. Please share.
Forth, new products. We are a design and manufacturing firm and continue to add more to an already expansive line of concrete and clay.
Thank you for being our partners and lets make 2012 a great year.
If you haven’t received any of the above items from us, drop us a line and well make sure you are able to share in the celebration.
NPCA article quick note
Howdy
Our art department will do a better job in a few days crafting the page but in the mean time enjoy this video.
Peace
A 23 year old tradition
Since I was 18 , 23 years ago now I have been coming in to ARTO on New Years Day.I come in for some corny reasons. I open the doors and turn on the water something about new air and water mostly hokum. But I do a few things that are not. I reflect, write, pray, look at the facts & set goals & a direction then pray again that I am not full of BS. Remembering that I do not know everything but preparing for everything, preparing for opportunities & drought.
Cigar Booze & Fear of the Lord
Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation
No need to add to this. All I can say is be grateful.
Proclamation of Thanksgiving
Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes
Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation
seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State
A New Creation
Howdy
I am very excited about the new site that the ARTO art department put together in house. It reminds me of the old days of working with Dream Weaver and guessing how to put a site together not very pretty but boy did the personal touch work. The new site goes back to our roots yet still is a new creation.
Peace
Armen
