About Nicole: She is a 2023-24 Oklahoma Visionary Artist who was born into a family of artists. Nicole’s last formal art training was a beginner’s ceramic class at a community college where she was told everything she did was wrong. Initially resisting the urge to follow her parents’ footsteps, she became a licensed auto mechanic. Now, with over 25 years of experience, she creates intricate wearable ceramic corsets, sculptural tile work, and immersive wall pieces using mixed media with unexpected, upcycled materials. At art openings, she often incorporates live models, transforming exhibitions into interactive installations. She also mentors emerging artists.

Nicole describes House of Eos: For over 15 years, I have been transforming my home into a living artwork, tiling it inside and out with hand-sculpted, one-of-a-kind tiles. What began as a desire to merge art with everyday life has become an evolving environment where each wall, room, and surface tells its own story. Inspired by nature, history, and my family’s artistic legacy, the house is both a canvas and a sanctuary.

Each section carries its own theme: the east wall reflects Mediterranean influences, a koi pond becomes an abstract tiled vignette, and the back of the house is envisioned as an Egyptian tomb. The front will emerge as an enchanted forest, complete with arched doorways and sculpted clay windows, while the interior draws deeply from my parents’ artwork. I created a tiled “rug” based on my father Albert Riddle’s painting of musicians and spectators, and in the bathroom, underwater life merges with a canopy of trees where a mermaid dives gracefully into the scene.

This house is an ongoing project—part dreamscape, part autobiography—and I don’t imagine it will ever truly be finished. Instead, it will continue to grow and change as I do, a lifelong expression of art as environment and environment as art.

The House of Eos is a lifelong artwork, built tile by tile into a home that embodies creativity.

Photos by Nicole Moan