Michele Jurado
Handpainted Ceramic Mirror Frames

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Michele Jurado

Fine ceramics artist Michele Jurado thinks outside the frame in many ways.  Her inspiration for beautiful hand painted ceramic mirror frames springs from multi-cultural influences.

Michele began her adult life in New York City as a student in the Art School at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.  While there, she also worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the special exhibitions department and in the bookstore gift shop, and she met her husband, Emil.  Their first project together was to search for a good place to settle in and raise a family.  After surveying several towns in Massachussets they chose Florence in the village of Northampton.  There, she earned her degree in Architecture and Urbanism at Smith College.  After apprenticing with ceramic artists in Northampton,  Michele opened her first studio in 1995, which she maintains today.

The distinctive Jurado style in slip cast ceramic earthenware reflects colors that filled her chldhood home, as decorated by her Swedish mother and Mexican American father.  She fondly remembers brightly colored Swedish art, especially holiday decorations, that her mother favored and the bright yet earthy colors of artifacts from Mexico and Central American that were collected by her father.  Michele's personal fondness for Moroccan art also factors in.

Slip cast ceramics are formed by pouring liquid clay into a plaster mold which absorbs the water, leaving the solid clay frame that that is then glazed and fired repeatedly.  The final step is Michele's signature applicaton of hand painted flowers, fruits and filigree.  These frames are shipped with mirrors in place.  They may be adapted, by a frame shop, to hold photography or art.