 And welcome to Design at Home. I'm Tiffany, an educator at the Cooper Hewitt-Smithsonian Design Museum. Today, I want to tell you about designer Ava Zeisel. Zeisel was born in Budapest in 1906, and she lived to be 105 years old. During her long life and career, she designed everything from furniture to candlesticks to dinnerware. And by using materials like textiles and ceramics in her designs, she really became a pioneer for women in the design field. Her designs are functional, but even more than that, they have this graceful elegance and this playfulness that has captured people's imaginations. Take, for example, these salt and pepper shakers. Zeisel was inspired by the relationship between these two objects to create a set that was inspired by her relationship with her daughter. You can see by just looking at them that they have this sort of emotional bond, by the way that the curves fit just so together, that really does make you think of a mother and child. Some of Zeisel's signature design motifs are test-lating patterns and organic shapes. You can see these occurring throughout the lifespan of her work. What is a test-lating pattern? A test-lating pattern is created when a shape repeats over and over again, covering a surface without any gaps. Another word for this pattern is tiling. Check out these modular sound dampening tiles. Even though these serve a very different function than the salt and pepper shakers that we just saw, you can see very clearly Zeisel's signature motif of repeating patterns and organic shapes. What I think is particularly interesting about these tiles is that you can actually move the separate pieces and mix and match the tessellation so that you can personalize it to your style and taste. If a Zeisel's work has inspired generations of designers, and now we're going to get to work on our very own designs inspired by Zeisel's repeating patterns and organic shapes. Here's what you'll need to get started. A potato, a butter knife, or you could use a spoon, a piece of construction paper, an acrylic paint and a paintbrush, or you could use an ink pad or even washable markers if you have those. Well, let's get started! Step one. Using a butter knife, cut one potato into two halves. If you want to use a sharper knife to do this, ask an adult for help. Step two. On a flat side of the potato, draw a shape that can be used to create a tessellation. Using the knife or a spoon, carve away the parts of the potato on the outside of your design. Step three. Apply your first color of acrylic paint or ink to the raised part of the potato. Holding the round side, press your pattern firmly against the construction paper. Repeat the color application and stamping process across the entire surface of the page. Step four. Using a second color of paint or ink, repeat step three, stamping your shape into the negative spaces that are left in your pattern. Thank you so much for joining me for Design at Home. For more ways to experience Design at Home, check out our website at cooperhewitt.org or head over to our Smithsonian Learning Lab page. Till next time!