Norma Hanlon &
Kirsten Hanlon Walstead

We are a mother-daughter team who collaborate to produce our custom tiles. The first tiles we made were of sunfish that were installed in the family bathroom in 1991. These tiles were the inspiration for our line of handmade ceramic tiles that incorporate images from the natural world.

Norma Hanlon (the Mother) has been a professional artist since 1971 when she left the field of journalism to pursue her passion for pottery making. In 1983 she began art classes at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. She had special interests in various media, including: paper making, printmaking, drawing, and painting. She continued on with her classes, eventually completing both her Bachelors of Fine Arts and Masters of Fine Arts degrees.

Kirsten Hanlon Walstead (the daughter) began her art career at a very early age. As her mother began working with clay, she played around in her mother's basement studio while still a toddler, making her own little creatures and monsters in clay. Over the years, the medium that Norma worked in changed, but Kirsten's interest in art never waned. In the early 1980's her mother began making handmade paper and Kirsten began her first job making handmade paper note cards for her. Kirsten graduated from Kansas State University in 1996 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in graphic design. While in college, Kirsten re-acquired her special interest in ceramics and especially enjoyed experimenting with unusual firing techniques and raku. It was during her summer vacations, working with her mother and her older sister, Lara, that the business now known as Fresh Fish Ceramic Tiles was begun.

Today, we work full-time as a mother-daughter team. Although we do work out of separate studios in order to keep our wonderful mother-daughter relationship intact, we still collaborate on all of our designs. We have also enlisted the help of other family members. They pack boxes, cut wood, put frames together and help out with other studio tasks.