There’s something powerful about repetition. Not the kind that dulls—but the kind that sharpens. The kind that turns motion into instinct, and instinct into something you can trust without thinking about it.
For Alexis Ellison, that rhythm didn’t start at Motawi. It started at home.
Her dad, David Ellison, was already deep in the tile world at Pewabic. Her mom came from Quebec—leaving behind her family, her language, everything familiar—just to work in ceramics. Tile wasn’t something Alexis discovered later. She grew up inside it.
And she never really left.
Role: Bulb Glazer (aka Bee Gee)
Years at Motawi: 13
What’s your role at Motawi?
I’m a glazer—basically a color-by-number artist. We have a [kanban] board with cards on it, and you pick one that tells you what tiles to glaze. After a while, it becomes a bit of a strategy game. You start choosing batches that use similar color palettes so you don’t have to switch as much, and you’re always thinking about how to get through the work efficiently.
What does a typical day look like?
I walk in and either glaze what’s on my desk or pick a new card. It’s repetitive, but after this long, it’s just muscle memory. Your hands know what to do, so your brain is kind of free. You don’t have to think about the motion anymore.
Free for what?
Mostly learning. I listen to a lot of long-form content—things I wouldn’t normally sit down and watch. Business, personal finance, aesthetics, anything like that. I think of it as my 40 hours a week of osmosis time, where I can just absorb information while I’m working.
What did you study before working in tile?
I graduated from U of D for architecture and digital media. I’ve never really used that—I’m a millennial, and they only hired six of us. I only know a few people from my class who are actually working in architecture. Most of my friends ended up in community development or urban planning… it has pretty boring job prospects.
You’ve been around tile your whole life—what did that look like growing up?
My dad worked at Pewabic when I was little, and my parents have known Nawal my whole life, so I grew up around all of it—watching Motawi happen, watching it grow. Even as a kid, I was making tile. There’s one in the archives from when I was really young. And that never really stopped. I still make tile with my parents now, outside of work.
That's what I bring to the employee markets, like Winter Market. The work we make together is inspired by history—older styles, older ideas—and it's definitely a different design language than what I do day-to-day at Motawi, but it's still very much part of the same world.
Working with them is its own thing, too. They both have really strong opinions about aesthetics—honestly, probably even more rigid than what we do here—so it feels like working in a completely different school of art. And because they've been doing this for so long, if they say something isn't going to work, I take that seriously. It's collaborative in a real way. If nobody else likes a design, we're just not making it.
I glaze most of the tiles we make, but everyone has opinions about how they want them to look. There’s a lot of “make me a gold one,” “make me a red one,” “make this one brighter.” It’s very much a group effort, even down to the color decisions.
I like making art for other people. I still feel like a student in a lot of ways, especially since I didn’t go to art school. I studied architecture and digital media, so a lot of what I’ve learned about art has come from doing it—and from working with people who’ve been doing it for decades.
How did you end up at Motawi?
I was working at Pewabic before this, in both production and the gallery. I loved it, but I needed something more stable—healthcare, consistent hours, the ability to actually support myself. So I applied here, and it ended up being life-changing in that way. Being able to make a living doing this kind of work makes a huge difference.
What’s your favorite part of the process?
Glazing, always. That’s what I love doing here, and it’s what I love doing with my family too. It’s the part that feels the most natural to me.
You recently won the Second Studio tile design competition—how did that feel?
It felt unreal. I’ve always wanted to design a Motawi tile, but our process is so refined—the palette, the line work, the way everything functions—that it’s not just about drawing something you like. You have to think about how it will actually work as a tile here. The process really dictates the design. It’s not the other way around.
Tell me about the Baby Stork.
Part of it came from my parents—they love storks—but I kept thinking about how every stork you see is an adult, usually delivering a baby. And I wondered what the baby storks are doing while that’s happening. That idea stuck with me. I also just like drawing cute things, so there was a balance of figuring out how far I could push that—how big the eye could be, how soft the form could be—without losing the elegance of the subject.
He’s kind of just waiting. Waiting for his parents to come back.
And seeing it become a real Motawi tile?
It still doesn’t feel real. It’s like asking your parents for the car keys for the first time and expecting them to say no, and instead they just say yes. And you’re like—wait, are you sure? Are you really sure? It has that same feeling of not quite believing it’s actually happening.
What have you gotten better at over time?
Glazing. After enough years, your hands just change. They get steadier, more confident. You stop thinking about the mechanics of it, and it just becomes something you do without effort.
What keeps you here?
I like the work.
⚡ Lightning Round:
Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Night owl.
Coffee, tea, or something stronger?
Coffee and tea.
How do you take them?
Bean water. And leaf water. No extra stuff.
Favorite Motawi tile design?
The Raven.
If your job were a tile, what would it be?
Also The Raven.
One word to describe Motawi?
Studio.
There’s a point, if you spend enough time doing something, where it stops feeling like something you learned and starts feeling like something you live inside.
For Alexis, that point came early.
She grew up in tile. Learned it by doing it. Kept going. And never really stepped away from it—whether at Motawi, at home with her parents, or now, designing something of her own that will live alongside the work she’s spent years helping bring to life.
A baby stork, waiting. Not quite convinced it’s its turn yet—but stepping into it anyway.
