You can check out what a landscape architect's studio looks like, or a custom furniture maker's, or a screen-printer's, jewelry maker's, graphic designer's, ceramic maker's, or even an experimental audio electronics person's.
The 400-year-old Dutch ceramic manufacturer, Royal Tichelaar Makkum, showed off its workers' skills in Dick van Hoff's tiled stoves, as did the Venetian glass maker Venini, in Barber Osgerby's gorgeous Lanterne Marine vases.
Able's founder, Keith Gehrke, a former roaster at a coffee company and a co-founder of Coava in Portland, Ore., is now working on a ceramic coffee maker.
Elsewhere, shares in Churchill China, the British ceramic products maker, rose 11p to 157.5p after the company said trading was exceeding expectations.
Ms. Grajales, a ceramic tile maker and architecture student, theorized that Baby One was startled off her perch by a passing helicopter and then lost her way home.
While the venture appears speculative, Rowsleys current investments, which include interests in a paper recycler and a ceramic tile maker, are pedestrian compared to the potential of the red-hot alternative energy sector.
In 2013 the company acquired the ceramic-tile maker Marazzi Group of Italy for $1.5 billion and laminate flooring manufacturer Pergo for $150 million.
A few dropped off, such as Kyocera, a Kyoto-based maker of ceramic packages for microchips.
Shortly after this coup, all the managers of another Hungarian firm, Zalakeramia, which is Central Europe's biggest maker of ceramic tiles and bathroomware, also fell victim to shareholder activism.
My room, however, was far from decrepit — in fact, it was clean, functional and even cute, with a tastefully striped bedspread, lots of soft pillows and a coffee maker with ceramic mugs, not Styrofoam cups.
