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Dear Collective Wisdom, I am seeking your advice and expertise concerning innovations in the process of silkscreen on clay tile. I'm working on a project involving the manufacture of decorative tiles made in the 1940s at The Mosaic Tile Company in Zanesville, Ohio, that featured silkscreened images transferred from line drawings. I have very little information on how this was accomplished, but apparently there were some issues involving a compromise between "suitability for halftone and suitability for line reproduction" on glazed ceramic tile. Apparently, discussions around this challenge at the time led to some sort of breakthrough in developing a suitable screening method that would preserve the nuances of the artist's designs. It is this breakthrough, if such it was, that I am trying to pinpoint. The few records of this firm that still exist are at the Ohio Historical Society, and I have been through every single page of them! I've not been able to answer the question of whether the technique used to reproduce the images onto the tile was indeed remarkable in the history of image transfer onto tile. I'm thinking I need to broaden my view, and try to understand what trends and techniques were current at the time, in order to determine the significance of the mysterious screening process used on these tiles. If anyone is, or knows, an expert on this period of tile manufacture in Ohio, and would be willing to reply to me off-list, I'd be very grateful, and would be glad to credit you in my paper. Thanks so much, Sally Sims Stokes Interim Head, Art and Architecture Libraries University of Maryland [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mail submissions to [log in to unmask] For information about joining ARLIS/NA see: http://www.arlisna.org/join.html Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc) to [log in to unmask] ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance: http://lsv.arlisna.org Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~