Viúva de Lamego is not a "local" artist per se but they're a leading artisanal workshop in classic and contemporary Portuguese tiles. If you have the budget, their tailor-made tiles are something else, imagination is the limit. (source: my dad does a lot of house restorations in Portugal and some require custom tiles to fill in missing/damaged areas)
I would love to help, but it's not my domain. I, unfortunately, witness the side-effects of people stealing them on my day to day. There are many shops in Lisbon that sell them, and there's even a beautiful museum here that it's definitely worth visiting (or signing up for a workshop!): https://museunacionaldoazulejo.gov.pt - it's currently closed for renovation; it should reopen later this year, but that's yet to be confirmed.
When buying - on the streets or in a shop - if it looks old, unless provenance is absolutely clear, please don't.
I assumed the word was derived from "azul" but from the article, it's apparently derived from the Arabic الزليج (al-zillīj) and has no relation with "azul"
Portuguese here - many Portuguese words have origin from Arabic as Portugal has been conquered and occupied by "the Moors" in 8th~13th century. That's a long time!
Alentejo, Aljezur, Algarve, and many of the cities in the Southern part of the country have have Arabic origins.
Lapis Lazuli is cognate, both come from the same Arabic/Persian root. Apparently “azure”, “azul”, “azzurro” lost the L because it got confused with the common “l’” article,
And the word from arabic comes, for both of them comes from persian for hte term lapis lazuli (lāžward) and suposedly this comes from sanskrit... but I ignore how it may sound in sanskrit.
This is one of those words that can sound exotic, but for the locals would be so plain and uneventful to hear. Kinda like all the Japanese words being used for software project names on Github.
I also wanted to see more about the temperature control aspect and was scanning the article for it. Some quick additional searching elsewhere turned up possible effects such as reflective surfaces, thermal mass, and moisture buffering.
When buying - on the streets or in a shop - if it looks old, unless provenance is absolutely clear, please don't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talavera_de_la_Reina
Easy to start, can get quite complex, heartily recommended!
[0] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/230802/azul
Whenever I want to play with a game engine I reimplement a version of it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebracketing
> Forgejo (pronounced /forˈd͡ʒe.jo/) is inspired by forĝejo, the Esperanto word for forge.