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As the daughter of two architects growing up in a small farming community in Central Illinois, Lindsay Meacham, owner of Red Rock Tileworks, has been playing with clay for as far back as she can remember. 'I was always artistic, but I'm also really practical,” she explains. 'My family always congregated in the kitchen, and it seemed like a great place to display art that's also functional. People need tile in their home.”
Meacham studied ceramics and anthropology at Miami University of Ohio and discovered while working on a tile project that she could elevate her ceramic art into a business. 'The anthropology part came into play as I'm really inspired by cultural elements like textiles, jewelry, and art from across the world,” she says. 'Tile is my way of bringing art to the masses. I like to call it ‘putting a contemporary twist on tradition.'”
After school, she traveled and lived in cities across the U.S. Her first home purchase was a double-wide trailer in the desert outside of Las Vegas. Following a boost in the local economy, she turned a rather large profit on the trailer and used the money to salvage kilns; she now owns seven electric and one gas. Soon after that, she began scavenging at auctions for the equipment needed to start her own tile-making business.
In 2011, she decided to relocate to Nashville, where she bought her own facility in the industrial Woodbine neighborhood. 'I was looking for a new space, and as a manufacturer, having close proximity to your resources saves money,” she says. Those resources, which she was sourcing from throughout the South, are the key ingredients of her specially formulated clay body. '[It's] a combination of Tennessee ball clay and Texas talc that, when fired, produces a very white, pure canvas so the colors come across crisp and bright,” says Meacham. She has three production staffers and rotates extra help when needed, mostly from local artists looking for work between their own projects.
'I hire a lot of artists, whether they are in ceramics, illustration, or music,” she says. 'Musicians are great with the sprayerit's all about keeping a rhythm and timing with your hand for the color to be even and consistent.”
Today, Meacham has more than 50 glazes as well as hundreds of styles and tile designs. On any given day, you can find her with one chalky hand in every step of the production process while the other is answering sales calls, shipping out orders, and running the back end of the business. Occasionally assisting is a pooch named Roscoe, who wandered into the shop one day.
As Red Rock Tileworks grows, Meacham plans on launching more tile lines like this spring's latest design, Prism. The line is inspired by the multifaceted angles of gemstones. 'They're triangular tiles that when pushed together can make different octagon shapes,” she says. 'They're broken down to a line drawing that's flat and easy to clean but gives you that interesting geometry.”
She's also busy with her first commissioned job for a commercial client, which she landed by participating in the renovations to the Hilton Hotel Downtown, and there are a couple of collaborative projects with other artists in the works. Last month, her team debuted a music video series called 'Live at the Tileworks,” which uses the shop as a unique performance space while promoting the local music culture.
447 Atlas Dr, Nashville, TN 37211; redrocktileworks.com Photos by TC Studios