SHRINERS CHILDREN'S EXTERIOR.
Seven hundred individually hand-painted ceramic tiles — designed, glazed, kiln-fired and installed by Javier Rocabado as one monumental architectural mosaic.
SEE THE
MOSAIC.
The completed exterior, individual tile work and the relationship between painted ceramic detail and architectural scale.
Every individual ceramic tile was painted by Javier before firing, then assembled and installed as part of the final exterior mosaic.
ONE TILE
AT A TIME.
Javier was commissioned by Asiya Shriners of San Mateo to create an exterior ceramic-tile entrance installation. Rather than dividing the work among fabricators and installers, Javier carried the project through its major stages himself.
He designed the composition, prepared the individual ceramic pieces, hand-painted all 700 tiles with low-fire glazes, fired the work in a kiln and then installed the completed tile system on the building.
The finished installation therefore operates at two radically different scales. Up close, it is hundreds of individual painted objects. From a distance, those separate pieces resolve into a single architectural image.
PAINT.
GLAZE. FIRE.
DESIGN
The full composition had to be conceived for a vertical exterior wall measuring 28 feet high by 16 feet wide.
HAND-PAINT
Javier painted every individual tile himself, treating each ceramic surface as one part of a much larger image.
LOW-FIRE GLAZE
The imagery was developed with low-fire ceramic glazes so the painted color became part of the fired surface.
KILN-FIRE
The individual pieces were fired before installation, fixing the glazed imagery onto the ceramic tile.
ASSEMBLE
Hundreds of separate tiles had to return to their correct position within the larger architectural composition.
INSTALL
Javier installed the finished work on the tall stucco exterior, completing the project from initial concept through final placement.
BUILT INTO
THE WALL.
The completed ceramic work rises 28 feet high across a 16-foot-wide stucco wall. At that scale, installation is not simply the last step of making the artwork — it is a major part of the work itself.
Alignment, sequencing and placement become architectural decisions. The image must remain legible at ground level while each tile also has to fit into the physical logic of the wall.
That combination of painting, ceramics and installation makes this project particularly representative of Javier's multidisciplinary practice. The final work is simultaneously a mural, a ceramic object and a permanent part of the building's exterior.
1925 ELKHORN COURT
SAN MATEO, CALIFORNIA
ART +
PHILANTHROPY.
Asiya Shriners is the San Mateo-area chapter of Shriners International. Both the chapter's current website and Shriners International list its address as 1925 Elkhorn Court, San Mateo, California.
Historic Asiya chapter publications document the chapter's close relationship with Shriners children's healthcare, including hospital board members and support for the Northern California children's hospital.
The wider Shriners Children's system was created around a philanthropic commitment to pediatric care. Shriners Children's Northern California now operates in Sacramento and provides specialty pediatric treatment to children from Northern California, the western United States, northwestern Mexico and Canada.
A PROJECT
ON RECORD.
The project received independent documentation in Mission Local in July 2021. In a profile of Javier connected to the San Francisco Mission Branch Library public-art selection process, the publication photographed him with the completed tile work and described it as his then-most-recent project: a tile mural associated with Shriners children's healthcare in San Mateo.
That article is useful documentation because it places the ceramic commission within Javier's broader Bay Area public-art career alongside work in Oakland, Hayward, Antioch and San Francisco.
2021 profile featuring Javier with the completed San Mateo tile mural.
READ ↗ 02 ASIYA SHRINERSOfficial San Mateo chapter site and current Elkhorn Court address.
VISIT ↗ 03 SHRINERS INTERNATIONALOfficial chapter listing for Asiya Shriners in San Mateo.
VISIT ↗ 04 NORTHERN CALIFORNIACurrent Shriners Children's Northern California hospital and care programs.
VISIT ↗ 05 HOSPITAL HISTORYShriners Children's history of its Northern California pediatric facility.
READ ↗ 06 ART + CHILDRENShriners Children's describes art and creative activity as part of its wider recreational-therapy approach.
EXPLORE ↗