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In 1927 William Wrigley, Jr. founded Catalina Clay Products Tile and Pottery Plant on Catalina Island just off of Los Angeles. Over the next ten years the plant produced innumerable tile pieces, which today still bring a distinctive flare to Catalina Island. In 1996, after years of visiting Catalina Island, Kris Selby, mother of Jed Selby and Katie Urban, happened upon a book there about the history of tile art on the island. Her interest was piqued and she set out on a 12-year journey through the world of tile art. And just as William Wrigley, Jr.’s first pieces began to bring color and excitement to Catalina Island nearly a century ago, Kris Selby’s Outdoor Living Room adjacent to the South Main Square has brought a new and distinctive flare to South Main.
Complete with a sofa, chair, ottoman, chess table and rug—all made from tile—the Outdoor Living Room is Kris’s first project of this type. She had seen pictures of tile furniture in places like Mexico and Spain and had always wanted to try a furniture project. “South Main was a perfect opportunity to do this,” Kris told me. “I just had such a vision for what could be there with the river and the mountains.”
In conceiving of the design, a primary consideration was that the living room fit well within the context of the neighborhood and park. Kris not only chose colors that would fit well with the surrounding environment, she “tried to create furniture that was more in the traditional style to be consistent with the traditional neighborhood development.” So she chose for the sofa a more traditional floral “fabric” and for the “wingbat” chair a plaid to contrast. Meanwhile she had her welder in Tucson, Jamie Meador, custom make the traditional claw feet of the chair and ottoman.
It is common for those first encountering the Outdoor Living Room to think that the furniture is “real.” The realism of the set is no accident and was not achieved easily. The curved arms of the sofa, for example, were created by molding soft clay tiles around a piece of PVC pipe before glazing and firing them. Kris had to use a high fire porcelain clay for the tiles and an epoxy thinset and grout to ensure that the pieces wouldn’t crack with the expansion and contraction caused by Buena Vista’s wide temperature swings from season to season. Kris employed mosaic techniques to tile over the curvature of the sofa and ottoman cushions. Meanwhile she was able to cut the tiles for the chair cushion in such a way that mosaic was not required.
A close inspection of the Outdoor Living Room reveals that Kris spared no detail to achieve the realism of the piece. She made a point to include the half-inch trim around the sofa cushions, which is a distinctive feature of traditional furniture. Beneath the chess table lays a tile rug, which was in-laid to be level with the concrete pad on which the living room sits. She designed the lamp which sits just east of the sofa and now comes on at the same time as South Main’s street lights.
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In 1927 William Wrigley, Jr. founded Catalina Clay Products Tile and Pottery Plant on Catalina Island just off of Los Angeles. Over the next ten years the plant produced innumerable tile pieces, which today still bring a distinctive flare to Catalina Island. 
as William Wrigley, Jr.’s first pieces began to bring color and excitement to Catalina Island nearly a century ago, Kris Selby’s Outdoor Living Room adjacent to the South Main Square has brought a new and distinctive flare to South Main.
Mexico and Spain and had always wanted to try a furniture project. “South Main was a perfect opportunity to do this,” Kris told me. “I just had such a vision for what could be there with the river and the mountains.” 
floral “fabric” and for the “wingbat” chair a plaid to contrast. Meanwhile she had her welder in Tucson, Jamie Meador, custom make the traditional claw feet of the chair and ottoman. 
glazing and firing them. Kris had to use a high fire porcelain clay for the tiles and an epoxy thinset and grout to ensure that the pieces wouldn’t crack with the expansion and contraction caused by Buena Vista’s wide temperature swings from season to season. Kris employed mosaic techniques to tile over the curvature of the sofa and ottoman cushions. Meanwhile she was able to cut the tiles for the chair cushion in such a way that mosaic was not required.