
Detail of Mt. Top Trio: Vert (side 2)
41” x 41” x 15 3/4” wide
Photo credit: Russel Hurlburt
41” x 41” x 15 3/4” wide
Photo credit: Russel Hurlburt

Mt. Top Trio: Rouge (side 2)
46 1/2” x 41” x 15 3/4” wide
Photo credit: Russel Hurlburt
46 1/2” x 41” x 15 3/4” wide
Photo credit: Russel Hurlburt
Tunick was inspired to work spontaneously on her recent site-specific commission,Mt. Top Trio: Vert, Violet & Rouge. Located on a 600-acre Vermont farm, the land is fertile with wild flowers and grasses, pear, apple and plum orchards. There are three sculptures that provide permanent landscapes of color. The sides of each organic shaped cedar sculpture are clad in ceramic tile. Each side of clay bands were created at the same time to insure that they would all shrink at the same rate and fit in their respective place. Tunick chose a completely new glazing method that allowed her to “build the colored surface from one firing to the next. She allowed the color to evolve by glazing non-adjacent elements. By staggering the glazing, she could watch it blossom, a process Tunick compares to “the way a pointillist painting was created.
There is a mesmerizing quality to the sculptures. The trio of forms reverberate color perhaps most vividly when seasons are harsh and nature is devoid of any strong hues. Inspired by haystacks found throughout the countryside, Tunick says, “I didn’t want the shapes to be so symmetrical. Thus, I felt that adding curves and some type of opening in the center could work well. The tile bands reiterate the circular motion of the haystacks – around and around and around!”

Green Halo Tile: 6” x 6” x 3/4”
Photo credit: Malcolm Varon
Photo credit: Malcolm Varon

Blue Night: 9 1/2”w x 11 1/2”h x 4” deep
Photo credit: Malcolm Varon
Photo credit: Malcolm Varon
As President ofFriends of Terra Cotta, a preservation organization devoted to protecting historic and architectural ceramics, Tunick has studied clay in architecture for over 25 years. She is invested in “seeing ceramics re-integrated into our environment…into landscape, interiors and into the facades of new buildings.” Her work represents this evolution precisely.