A few gracious Shell Beach Drive property owners have allowed the American Press to photograph interiors to share with readers. Photographs have included kitchens with state-of-the art technology, touches of primitive decor, huge pantries and original paintings by favorite and local artists. None showed a kitchen — or art — like this.

This kitchen was built around its backsplash, more than 200 pieces of six-inch-by-six-inch tile hand-painted and fired by local artist Susan Hebert.

When Hurricane Laura blew the roof off 1220 Shell Beach Drive in August 2020, the house had to be torn back to the studs and rebuilt — for the second time. It was also torn back to the studs and rebuilt after Hurricane Rita in 2005.

When homeowners Steve and Cammie Shaddock were considering plans for the rebuild and the talk turned to tile, they remembered the blue hand-inked  Portugal tiles they had seen during their travels. They discussed their appreciation of the backsplash in a friend’s home. After much thought, the two decided to express their appreciation of fish, fauna and family not only on the backsplash behind their range, but on the backsplash throughout the kitchen with its incredible view of the lake and the Interstate 10 bridge where Steve — from a family of cooks— spends a lot of time.

And they knew just the artist to do it — Susan Hebert, a local watercolorist (though she does use acrylic) known for depicting Louisiana scenes.

Hebert was familiar with the process of sublimation, transferring art to certain materials. However, to create a final non-glossy surface in the right colors that would stand up to heavy cleaning, she had to go through quite the learning curve.

“Working with Steve and Cammie, we developed a very specific color palette,” Hebert said. “Steve, someone who has fished all over the world, wanted fish and he wanted them to be anatomically and color correct. I Googled pictures, noted the length and the weight because the mural above the range had to be to scale.”

Hebert learned about fishing grand slam, redfish, trout and flounder, and pulled not only from her artistic talent but also from her engineering background. She sought the expertise of Tracy LeMieux, a local ceramics expert for consulting on glazes and how firing affected the final paint colors.

“I couldn’t have done it without Tracy,” she said. “She really had to school me on every aspect of the process. She was patient about it and she even let me use her kiln.”

Painting with the ceramic paints, for which Hebert developed her own formula, required layering, just like watercolors.

“But the thing was, with this type of paint, if you did not complete the painting at one sitting and came back, all the colors faded to a single value. You can’t see the true color until the tiles are fired in the kiln. Firing brings it back to life again.”

Some of the tiles had to be fired three times to get the finished product just right.

In addition to the fish, the Shaddocks requested tiles representing the 200-year-old cypress tree that was downed by Hurricane Rita and later used to make their kitchen table. They asked for magnolia flowers, pelicans, live oaks and I-10 gun pistols. This unusual quest to have original artwork of beloved Louisiana things in their kitchen, on their tile, even includes thumb and handprints of grandchildren that Hebert turned into insects.

From concept to completion, the project took nine months. The tiles were finished before that time, but had to be installed and James Bellows of Russell Stutes contracting made sure the tile installation and finish work all went according to plan, which took a few additional measures and re-measures to create a kitchen — and art — unlike any other.