Good morning, babe!”
She answered the phone so excitedly I thought she must have expected my call.
“You won’t believe it, babe. A beautiful little bird just flew into my front window, and now he’s dead! Just a beautiful little thing sitting on my windowsill.”
A long pause. “So, who is this?”
After reintroductions, Gail Lyster, a Sandpoint artist and self-identified Earth girl, gives me directions to the studio in her backyard – home to the only tile artist in the Sandpoint area.
Fine Art Tile Studio was given to her in 1990 by a friend who left the company for Hawaii. Gail, originally a leatherworker, went from teaching herself how to paint letters to installing tilework in Grand Teton National Park.
The studio, once located in downtown Sandpoint, is now only a few barefooted steps from her house. Designed by her husband and a friend based on sketches she drew herself, the studio is home to all sorts of Gail’s creations.
Her kiln, a furnace designed to bake pottery, sits in a corner opposite her work desk, a retired hospital gurney.
Centerstage is a nude mannequin wearing an apron Gail never wears – its purpose to cover the mannequin’s “goods” for kids and clients.
“Look, babe!” she points to a tiny golden heart. “You can see the aorta holes!”
Without squirming, she describes how she found and skinned a dead bird, removed the heart and used a small paint brush to paint it gold.
If Gail wasn’t an artist, she would be a taxidermist.
“I thrive on the thrill of the Earth,” she says. “I guess you could call me a naturalist.”
She starts her day early. She walks across the lawn to the studio, sometimes in her pajamas, sometimes in a bathrobe.
She fires up the kiln to 1800º, invites her 5-year-old grandson over and browses her projects for the day. Most of her work is commissioned by parents wanting a nameplate for their newborn, retired couples wanting a splash of art for their kitchen or by business owners adding culture to their building.
She makes her own tiles or purchases terracotta tiles to create tiny masterpieces or murals pieced together like a giant puzzle.
Changing eyeglasses, she draws with pencil onto the tile and uses wax to outline the edges and prevent paint from mixing. She prefers painting without wax and letting the colors “go where they want to go.”
Tile paints and glazes change from bottle to tile. After the tiles are fired in the kiln, whites can turn to blues, reds can turn to greens, greens can turn to oranges. Knowing just what colors to use has required 30 years of practice.
To fit intricate art on 6-inch by 6-inch tiles, some paint brushes she uses contain a single hair or two. The detail work is her favorite part.
For bigger pieces she lays out her pattern and uses an overhead projector to reflect the image onto the tiles.
“Tile is forgiving,” she says. “But I want my pieces to look exactly like the client wants. When a mom wants llamas in an apple orchard for her baby, I’ll do it!”
“It takes a long time to say, ‘I’m an artist,’” she says. “I’m not afraid to say I am one.”
To make sure her work is as realistic as possible, she even sets up her own references. While painting a food-inspired mural for the dining room at Tito Macaroni’s, she laid the tiles on her kitchen floor and recreated the scene with real fruits and vegetables.
“I would come home and tell my husband, ‘Today’s cauliflower, let’s go to the store,’” she says, scrunching her nose. “‘But first get rid of last week’s broccoli — it stinks!’”
Although Gail does not advertise her tile art, her customers and fans are loyal and unique.
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“I’ve grown up with her art displayed all over Sandpoint,” says Emily Navarra, a native Sandpoint teenager. “Her art is our gem. She adds a tasty flavor to our little town.”
One of Gail’s clients was so in love with her work and passion for the nature of the Northwest, she commissioned Gail to cover three kitchen walls in a tile mural depicting the seasons in Idaho.
Gail’s pieces have even been featured in Coldwater Creek and Walker Zanger catalogs for purchase, turning her into a “one-person factory.”
Although tile has been overlooked in recent years in favor of granites and marbles, mediums Gail calls “slick items,” she is not worried about the success of her business.
“Tile is a forever medium,” Gail says. “Tile last forever, and my business will last until my hands go.”
Her personal style and artistic influence is rooted in her childhood. Gail grew up in a cabin in the woods outside of New York City. There was no television, just crafts.
“We were a creative family, babe,” she says. “My mom made sure we were always busy. You got thrown in the craft closet if you ever said the b-o-r-e-d word.”
She raised her own daughter in Sandpoint the same way — a cabin with no running water, electricity or bathroom. Just crafts.
Gail doesn’t just “do tile.”
She water paints, teaches art classes, works leather, illustrates children’s books and even makes sculptures out of trash, dead animals and forest scraps.
With pinecones, water bottles, glass chips, feathers and a bag of her friend’s dreadlocks, she makes little creatures you can’t find in nature.
“Even when I go on tropical vacations, I pick up debris while everyone is sunbathing,” she says. “My vacation is some palm leaves and a hot glue gun.”
Her advice for not getting in trouble with airport security: write ‘Made in Mexico’ on the back of the creations.
“If God made all these things, I’m his friend,” she says.
“There are endless, wonderful things you can make with nature.”
Where does she get all these ideas?
She points to her forehead. “It’s in here, babe.”
As we walk back to my car, past tilework, a banjo made from a plate and Christmas ornaments made of hornet nests, I notice the dead bird still sitting on her windowsill.
Before I ask what sort of creation she will make with the feathered corpse, she answers my question.
“Not this time,” she says. “I’m going to bury him.” N
By Rosemary Anderson
Photography By Joel Riner
As Featured In: 2018 Summer/Fall CDA Edition
