Jordan Wine Country Table - Vol. 19, 2024 - 28

" I knew I had to change my work without changing my
technique, " Riehl says. " I had to turn small, intricate porcelain
sculptures into a bigger work of art. "
Digging deeper into her childhood memories, Alice found
another inspiration: ancient French tapestries. Tapestries
combined the art of needlework with telling a story on a grand
scale. Her grandmother had lived in Normandy, and they'd
visited the nearby museum that houses the renowned Bayeux
tapestry-an 11th century embroidery on linen that tells the story
of the Duke of Normandy's conquest of England. The tapestry
spans about 230 feet in length.
" The vision of that famous narrative embroidery on a very long
wall has always stayed with me, " Riehl says. " I began to envision
my work as a porcelain tapestry that tells a story on a wall. "
By 2016, Riehl moved exclusively to porcelain murals for her
body of work. Early sculptures were non-figurative, hybrids between
plant and animal, before her focus turned entirely to the stunning
plant-centric sculptures she makes today. Interior designers have
commissioned her to craft striking murals for residential clients
in North America and residential and commercial clients in Asia,
the Middle East and Europe. Alice Riehl sculptures can be found
on many intriguing walls, such as those at the Holy Deer, a luxury
apartment inside Palazzo Pamphilj in Rome, which was built
by Pope Innocent X in the 17th century.
AS HER WORK GAINED INTERNATIONAL ATTENTION, Riehl
decided to partner with an American art gallery for the first
time-one that specialized in mural art. In 2022, Riehl joined
Todd Merrill Studio of New York, around the same time that
Jordan Winery began its search for a captivating art installation
with French roots for its new lobby.
" I was thrilled to learn that there were already three antique
French tapestries at Jordan, " Riehl says, now in her mid-fifties
and celebrating 20 years in her second career. " This project
felt so natural to me, to draw the connection between tapestries
and the place. "
According to Riehl, she was struck by the composition of the
tapestries at Jordan-how the trees and the countryside are a more
prominent subject, and she imagined a similar composition
for the porcelain mural at Jordan. The artist also found herself
in unfamiliar territory, which she found exciting.
" Everything was new. I'd never created a mural to span three
walls and a curved ceiling, " she says. " The plants found at Jordan
are different from those I've sculpted in the past as well. I'd made
a rose, but never a Claire Austin rose like the ones grown in the
Jordan garden. I had to be very careful about the scale in such
an unusual shape of canvas to bring those plants to life. "
Riehl's first commissioned work open to the public in the
United States, the Jordan Winery mural, took about 11 months
to complete, from research to installation. She spent the first
90 days studying the native and cultivated plants of the Jordan
Estate, as well as ancient tapestries known for their vivid flora.
Riehl pored over photos of the estate's lupine, crimson clover
and other wildflowers, along with the many varieties of roses,
dahlias and peonies found in the Jordan cutting garden. " But
I wanted to see as many of the plants as possible up close, " she says.
The artist hunted around Paris and the rural countryside to find
distant relatives of the California plants in France, then collected
samples and made dried-leaf presses of each to further her study.
Two-dimensional drawings of the plants were then created to scale
the dimensions precisely and test the essential shadows.
" It's important before you model to create an intimacy with
the plant, " Riehl says, taking a break between kiln firing at her
studio in Paris's 20th Arrondissement.
28 THE DESIGN ISSUE
Jordan Wine Country Table - Vol. 19, 2024

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