By Janet Miller | Special to The Ann Arbor News
A number of years ago, Nawal Motawi fielded a call from a customer in California who wanted to buy direct from the Ann Arbor tileworks company to avoid the markup from his area dealer. That was against policy, Motawi, company founder and principal designer, told the gentleman. He was going to have to order through his local dealer.
When the voice on the phone announced that he was William H. Macy, Motawi didn’t budge. While customers who don’t live near a dealer can buy direct, others must go through official sources Even if she had known at the time that Macy was the American actor known for independent films such as “Fargo,” the answer would have been the same, Motawi said.
Motawi Tileworks, a local treasure with a national reputation, can be found in public places and famous spaces around the country, from the homes of Hollywood stars to Disneyland, from the hallowed halls of universities to public parks. Motawi tile even makes a cameo appearance in the Billy Crystal and Robert De Niro movie “Analyze That.”
While Motawi Tileworks began in 1992 in the garage of Motawi’s parents, it has grown into a 10,00- square-foot shop west of Ann Arbor at 170 Enterprise Dr. and is sold in 450 showrooms, shops and galleries around the country. It’s grown up and grown famous.
“Someone saw a trailer to ‘Analyze That’ and noticed that Billy Crystal was sitting in front of a fireplace with Motawi tile,” Motawi said. “I took the staff to see the movie.”
Motawi customers read like a who’s who of the entertainment world: It’s in the shower of actor Nicolas Cage’s children, the kitchen of movie star Andie MacDowell’s Asheville, N.C., home and a potting shed of New Zealand singer and actress Lucy Lawless. David Letterman purchased white Motawi subway tile from a New York showroom and Steven Spielberg ordered a pallet of a custom color tile and had it shipped overnight delivery. When singer Natalie Merchant was in town, she asked for a tour of the Motawi studio. “I gave (actress) Marcia Gay Harden a whole tour before I knew who she was,” Motawi said.
The brush with fame gains little more than bragging rights, Motawi said. “I can name drop.”
Influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, the American art tiles use nature, art and architecture in their design. They are used for installations and as single pieces of art, called gift tiles.
While its latest public installation is slated for the front façade of the Montgomery Building renovation in downtown Ann Arbor, Motawi tileworks made its first public appearance in 1997 with “The Pines” installation in the Washington Square Public Library in Kalamazoo, a 21-tile mural. Another mural followed at the library, this one of a classic 1927 piece called “Child’s Storybook World,” a boy sitting under a tree reading from a giant opened book.
When Motawi took one of several copies of the 21-tile boy reading mural to a conference in Asheville, Disney representatives planning an Arts and Crafts hotel in Anaheim asked if her company could produce an 8-foot square version of the child reading for installation in the Grand California’s Storyteller’s Café. “I said ‘Absolutely,’” Motawi said, before she had a chance to consider the behemoth project. It was, by far, larger and more complex than anything the company had done, and it included the iconic Disney Enchanted Castle in the background.
It was only when the project was three-quarters done – everything but the glaze – that Motawi realized it was the wrong size and had to start over. “I bought my staff pizza for a week,” she said.
After the Disney installation, Motawi was interested in bringing her tilework to the Ann Arbor public. While Motawi was in hundreds of Ann Arbor area homes, it had no public presence. “The number one priority for our staff was to have a community presence,” said Colleen Crawley installation designer.
Sue Walter made that happen. A Motawi customer, Walter was looking for a way to support the Ann Arbor District Library. Motawi took the wrong-sized Disney mural of the boy reading out of storage – replaced Disney’s enchanted castle with the original castle – and glazed the project for the Pittsfield branch. That was 2006.
Since, Motawi murals have spread across Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and the University of Michigan campus: Ann Arbor Hands On Museum, the Ann Arbor YMCA, the U-M law school and the health system, the Angell Hall conference room at U-M and at the Ypsilanti District Library. Some 17 Motawi quilt murals, funded through the gifts of art program, occupy most of the floors of the hospital. “People wait at hospitals,” Crawley said. “That’s where the most people engage us.”
The largest Motawi installation is on the campus of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, a 400-square-foot custom project that includes the 193 members of the United Nations. It’s 28 feet long and 5 feet high.
Motawi has made a name for itself outside of Michigan. Public murals appear around from New York to Texas to California. The boy reading mural is the most popular public mural, Motawi said, but there are custom murals, such as a wildlife piece in a park outside of Houston. Other universities have Motawi installations. A frieze panel installation rings the interior of the Bass Library at Yale University.
While public installations account for only 3 to 5 percent of Motawi’s annual revenue, Motawi said she knew she wanted to get the tileworks into public spaces. When she and her staff went on one of their field trips to see the public murals at the U-M hospital, she knew why. “I came across a woman looking at one of our murals,” Motawi said. “She began stroking it, communing with it. She was having a peaceful moment with it.”
Janet Miller is a freelance reporter for The Ann Arbor News.