Clara Meets Mosaic in Arto’s New Collaboration with Artist Allison Eden

Submitted by Patricia Neumann

4/17/23

Clara Meets Mosaic in ARTO’s New Collaboration with Artist Allison Eden

The moment Armen Alajian first saw Allison Eden’s work featured in Tile Letter magazine, he thought to himself, “Here’s someone I’d like to collaborate with.”

Armen and his brother Vod are the co-owners and operators of ARTO, SoCal-based makers of handcrafted tile and brick products created from locally sourced materials for one-of-a-kind projects. Because of their handcrafted nature, each individual ARTO piece has its own variations and individual character. The result: no two ARTO tiles or bricks are alike.

Like ARTO’s products, every Allison Eden work of art is entirely unique as well — which makes them especially appealing to Armen.

“That and her colors!” Armen explains. “She isn’t afraid of embracing vibrant colors and ebullient patterns, and clearly has fun with them.”

A Brooklyn-based artist, Allison Eden creates a colorful body of work running the gamut from large-installation custom glass mosaics, to home goods, textiles and fabrics, to men and women’s fashion. You’ll find her pieces featured in Architectural Digest, Interior Design Magazine, Metropolitan Home, and Elle Décor, as well as in a range of environments including homes, retail, hotels, hospitals, community centers, and restaurants. Her giant mosaic shoe sculpture in Bloomingdale’s Manhattan flagship store is a popular addition to many shoppers’ Instagram accounts.

Allison shares ARTO’s passion for handcrafted, custom work. In creating her mosaics, she uses nippers and pencil cutters — no power tools. And like ARTO, she prefers to use locally sourced materials made in small batches in the U.S.

It was her colorful mosaics that caught Armen’s attention. That and, like himself, Allison doesn’t seem to understand the word “no.”

Armen first had the opportunity to work with Allison on a project in Palm Springs for Modernism Week 2023, known as the Shag House — a retro architectural delight owned by world-renowned artist SHAG. When the project hit a snag, Armen approached Allison to see if she’d be game for other collaborative opportunities.

“She seemed approachable and curious,” Armen recalls. “And she said, ‘yes!’”

For her part, Allison had been hearing and seeing ARTO products for as long as she can remember. “The tile industry is small,” she explains. “And ARTO’s products really stand out. Everyone who works there is an artist, and the pieces they produce are so cool, so colorful, so beautiful. This will be a new collaboration for me, and I’m excited about it.”

Armen sent Allison a sampling of one of ARTO’s newest products to work with. “We decided to ship her our high-fired Clara Tierra Madre 4×4-inch ceramic tile to use for her brilliant mosaics,” he says. “Clara comes in an assortment of candy-bright glazes that we thought would be a great fit for Allison’s style. The Tierra Madre texture that comes from glazing the back side of the tile adds an earthiness and variation that make these tiles especially unique.”

“I love the samples ARTO sent me,” Allison says. “They’re gorgeous. The colors are very warm, they have a glow to them, and I love how they work together. They’re also very sturdy with a weight to them, and have a Southwestern feel that is out of my typical style. This will be a very different medium for me to work in.”

Allison is also drawn to the individually unique variation in each Clara tile. “The glass I use in my pieces is never the same either,” she says. “It’s those imperfections that make it beautiful. I’m looking forward to seeing how the tiles turn out mixed with inserted glass. The possibilities are endless, and it pushes me to think outside the box.”

“We’re not sure yet how the mosaics Allison creates with Clara will be used, but like she says, the possibilities are endless!” adds Armen. “We’d love to see them on a pool bottom.”

For Armen, collaborations like this one with Allison are part of the ARTO tradition.

“My father, Arto, made handcrafted leather shoes in his father’s factory as a boy living in Egypt,” Armen explains. “When he immigrated to Southern California, he started hanging around with avant-garde ceramic artists in Venice and Santa Monica, and started collaborating with them on brick veneers. That’s where ARTO was born, from these first artistic collaborations. We’re continuing that collaborative heritage with Allison and other talented artists as well.”

“Armen is a great guy, very knowledgeable and creative,” Allison says. “I look forward to this being the start of many future projects together.”

ARTO will be sharing Allison’s finished work incorporate Clara soon, so stay tuned!

Learn more about Allison Eden’s work at her website, https://www.allisoneden.com. Learn more about ARTO at https://www.arto.com, and about Clara tile at https://www.arto.com/Clara-Tierra-Madre-4×4-High-Fire-Ceramic-Tile.