Company: Artistic Tile

Company URL: artistictile.com

Product/Collection Name: Alicia Rodriguez

About This Product: A pattern that embraces irregularity and chance, Varo by Ali Budd inspires artistic expression through its modularity. Six unique natural stone panels compose the pattern, each containing a panoply of organic shapes.

Varo welcomes aesthetic experimentation through rotation and rearrangement. Each module layers multiple diverse contours—from sinuous arches and hourglass shapes to tapering triangles and faceted rectangles—and can be composed as designed by Ali Budd or freely mixed. The irregularity of each piece and the modularity of the entire pattern deliver the ultimate in design freedom. Artistic Tile Design Director Courtney Vagliardo explains, "There is nothing else like it in natural stone: the biomorphic shapes soften every line, creating an innovative design vocabulary."

Made to order through Artistic Tile's Tailored To Program, Varo by Ali Budd is fabricated at our New Jersey headquarters using waterjet-cutting technology. Clients choose their own combination of natural stone or glass, personalizing their materials, colors, and finishes to create one-of-a-kind custom tile. "Not only can clients select their own materials—anything from classic Calacatta Gold Marble to deep Verde Alpi Serpentine—they can also compose and reposition each of Varo's six units… Putting it together is always personal," Vagliardo says.

Ali Budd envisioned Varo as a seemingly random pattern based of imperfect shapes. The Toronto-based interior designer and host of HGTV's House of Ali is known for an aesthetic of sophisticated glamour in complex-yet-intuitive layers—a sensibility inextricably linked to the visual foundation behind the mosaic, now realized in luxurious natural stone. "What I love most is how we leaned into showcasing the softer side of natural stone," Budd says.

That softness is more than visual. A February 2026 study titled "Exploring the Psychological Effects of Stone," published in the International Journal of Affective Engineering, found that visual engagement with natural stone surfaces can promote detached mindfulness and reduce stress responses. Varo's organic, free-flowing forms—arranged by each client—invite exactly this kind of unhurried visual engagement, turning a floor into a surface for both artistic expression and quiet observation.