Motawi Tileworks

Fascinating artist and business. Unique and inspiring. Also expensive, but there are lovely deals in the boneyard. Wish they did not stamp "seconds" on the back of the tiles there as it makes a less desirable gift. If they had a code, like a stamped star, they could still easily distinguish for their purposes and devalue less for gifting.

A little hard to find but worth the trip just to shop in their "boneyard" that they put their imperfect tiles that it would be hard for normal person to fine. The prices for those tiles are one third to one half the normal price. Selection there is limited but I still found some of the Frank Lloyd Wright and Charlie Harper designs. They are the licensed makers from those copyright owners. Their own designs are art and craft style. Glad I visited since it was high on my local bucket list.

Prior to visiting, we already had a number of Motawi tiles in our home and an appreciation for the detail and craft of each piece. After going on the tour of the entire operation, it's clear these folks are on another level - and it's quite humbling. The tour itself was incredibly illuminating. Everyone we spoke with has a clear passion for the care and craft that goes into each piece. After the tour concluded, we spent some time evaluating discount pieces in the Boneyard, and wound up purchasing a number of fantastic pieces (full price and Boneyard discount). Because we were traveling from out of town, we had our purchase shipped home, and everything arrived quickly, as expected. If you find yourself anywhere near Detroit and have some time to drive over to Ann Arbor, and are remotely aware of Motawi Tileworks, you should absolutely make the trip.

Very nice collection and selection of hand crafted, hand painted decorative tiles. Staff was super nice and helpful. Looks like a nice place to work and for me to support.

This was our first time visiting. The tiles are absolutely gorgeous. The salesperson helping us was very knowledgeable and friendly. They even have a "boneyard" where you can get discontinued or slightly defective tiles at a discount. We bought several tiles and I can't wait to arrange them in our home.

Beautiful, one of a kind tiles. Great service and extraordinary work. Highly recommended shop in Ann Arbor.

I've lived in Ann Arbor for years and always planned to do the Motawi Tileworks tour (offered twice a week, Tue at 1 or Thur at 11) and finally got there today. The tour is interesting, the tiles beautiful. All questions were answered thoroughly and professionally. We are fortunate to have Motawi in Ann Arbor, but the tour and the tiles are for anyone!

Our first trip here after years of wanting to visit. Had a great time shopping in the boneyard. We signed up for the tour and would NOT recommend. Everyone was very nice and it was obvious they like what they do, but the tour dragged on way too long. The tour was an hour and a half long and really could be cut down to a half hour. Unless you're a ceramicist enthusiast, most the information was unnecessary and honestly a waste of our time. Please consider tightening up the tour to more interesting/pertinent information. Other than the tour, the tile is beautiful and we purchased a ton of pieces to bring home.

A little hard to find but worth the trip just to visit the "boneyard" where they have their "2nds" at 1/3 to 1/2 the price. And if you have been drooling over their tiles in museum gift shops but didn't want to spend the money, you can get some examples of their works. They have the rights to make tiles for Frank Lloyd Wright foundation and Charlie Harper copyright owners. The shop is small and they only sell their own designs. They also have frames, clocks, and other items that you can put their tiles. The stands for the larger sizes are heavy duty and some of those were also in the boneyard section. Plenty of parking, some special weekends where you can glaze some blanks and their artisans creations for sale. Get ready to work your Mastercard even when shopping the boneyard section.

Ordered a expensive over $200 tile only to receive one that I felt was imperfect. After sending pictures to the company they told me these tiles often have such flaws and sent me a link to their return policy which I needed to do at my expense. I have several of their tiles but will not be buying anymore due to the way this issue was handled.

I purchased one of their 6x6 tiles online. When I was in the process of purchasing 1 6x6 tile, I though that the shipping charge was a bit high, but over double actual shipping costs is unreasonable, deceptive, unethical and unwarranted. We paid $22.11 for shipping just 1 6x6 tile from Michigan to Iowa. Checking with UPS retail rates, it would have cost only $11.02 for a 9x9x5 box weighing 3 pounds. That is a retail rate, so since you are a business I'm sure that it was less than the retail rate of $11.02. We were going to, over time, buy a new 6x6 tile for our clock for each season and holiday, but we don't like getting ripped off. Do you?

I love quality art and craft and Motawi fits the bill. We own a piece, purchased at a gallery at home and in all the years I have visited Ann Arbor, I have never had a chance to do the tour of the studio or shop a large selection of their goods. Yes, you can purchase online these days but a screen cannot do justice to their quality. Once you've seen it in person, you can get a sense for how something will look and feel. If I had a craftsman house, I cannot think of a better designer and tile producer to do a fireplace. Or even a kitchen backsplash. But I don't so I'll content myself with some small pieces for decor. The tour made a big impact on me as I am a crafts person and former fiber artist. I love to see production of the works. This was a full hour, packed with info from the workers at their stations. From the chemist who produces the glazes, to the painters who do the fine detail, to the preparing the raw clay and viewing the variety of kilns. I loved every minute, no detail too inconsequential. Nawal Motawi, an artist, founded the Tileworks in 1992 and has a small team to make her designs available to a larger audience than she alone could do, but this is in no means mass production. All hands on work by skilled people hand picked carefully to represent her. Many people were in the shop for the purpose of scouring through the seconds and discontinued items for bargains. And there seemed to be a fair selections. But honestly, I always want the perfect piece representative of an artist's work so I bought a few things for myself and as gifts from the front shop, not the "boneyard." I loved seeing the new designs on the shelves.

Beautiful art that is also functional. I was so impressed with the high quality look of each tile. The staff was friendly and helpful. Be prepared to pay a steep price, but you get what you pay for. I would love to do a bathroom or kitchen backsplash with this material. Its smaller than i thought but it is worth checking out.

The tiles are beautiful. The customer service was horrible. I spent thousands of dollars on full price Motawi tiles for my kitchen. I was then looking to do a small floor. Because their prices are very high, I was purchasing them from the Boneyard. I was treated, by the owner no less, like I was a second class citizen. She was extremely rude and condescending. They would not take back tiles that were defective because they were breaking, citing the rule that Boneyard sales are final. First of all, the tiles were not defective because of coloring or other common faults expected in the Boneyard. They were defective because they were actually falling apart. This is not typical - they said there was a problem producing those tile sizes and they were stopping production for now. Despite that, they would not take the ones I had purchased for hundreds of dollars back. There is not one sign that says they can be STRUCTURALLY defective. When I complained, I was told "everyone here will tell you they can be defective and it's final sale". That didn't happen. My designer went back soon after, and, not surprisingly, they removed the defective tiles from the Boneyard. I was disgusted and will NEVER go back. I should have told her I just spent thousands of dollars with them, but it shouldn't matter- they should treat everyone equally. I will be giving future money to Pewabic. I regret ever giving them my money since that is how they treat their customers.

We have several pieces, some going back many years to the time that Motawi Tiles operated out of a garage. Lately we have gotten some in frames for our house or to give as gifts. Amazingly beautiful pieces, each one a treasure to last a lifetime. And the people are excellent to work with. I love the combination of tiles + beautiful wooden frames. Every ten years or so, I try to convince them to make Penrose tiles, but that hasn't worked out just yet.

Motawi makes a wide variety of architectural and art tile-- design that manages to either fit into historical context or look good in a modern setting. I've bought a number of Motawi tiles and use them in kitchen and bathroom renovations. They do a very nice job of blending the stylized artistic imagery with traditional design thinking, and the tile quality (coloring, glaze, etc.) is superb. I've been to a couple of their semiannual mega sales, which is sort of the upper middle class white progressive equivalent of a Black Friday Wal-Mart TV stampede and is kind of an outrageous mess but is also kind of fun. One may or may not get a deal at these, and if you don't, the tiles are honestly pretty exorbitant if you're used to buying Daltile from Home Depot, but you really aren't buying a mass produced product, you're buying an artisanal, niche product that will hopefully last for ever and ever amen. So, kudos, love it, keep up the good work, etc.

We've been wanting to resurface our brick fireplace in our 1910 Arts and Crafts home since we bought it. After researching different custom tile manufactures we decided Motawi suited our tastes the best and made the trip to Ann Arbor to discuss the process and view the tiles first hand. Motawi Tileworks is a great place, everyone we spoke with was welcoming, friendly, and knowable about all the products. Great showroom. Their tile boneyard is equally great. Our intention was fact gathering but couldn't resist the urge to buy their address number tiles, two songbird tiles to flank either side of the numbers and a Nutcracker and Christmas tree tile to change out with the songbirds at Christmas time. We couldn't wait to see how'd they look and hung them this morning as soon as the sun came up. They look great. Totally hooked on Motawi Tile and will be back for more. The quality and attention to detail is like no other. We remodeled our kitchen 2 months ago with tile for the backsplash from a local tile shop and have already decided to take it down and replace with Motawi Tile. Our next trip to Motawi is December 5 to take our kids to participate in the make your own tile and annual sale. Motawi Tileworks is utterly and completely addictive from the first purchase!

Today I finally got to attend the Motawi annual holiday mega sale, an event I had been wanting to attend for many years. I arrived at 10:15 AM, and stood in line for over a half an hour to get into the building. At the doorway an employee informed me that people had been waiting in line prior to 830 this morning. The postcard I received indicated savings of up to 85% off tile. Inside the warehouse there were first run tiles at regular price, and seconds, discontinued items, and imperfect tiles available for sale at 40% off. The postcard I had entitled me to 25% off one tile. There was no evidence of anything being on sale. The first run tile was regular price, and the second runs were 40% off which is the regular price for seconds. Field tile was being sold by the pound, and I don't know if this is the regular practice or if that was the savings item. I then stood in line for over an hour to pay for my purchases. So the bottom line is that there was no sale, it was a holiday open house and a lot of hype, but no real savings. The prices I saw for decorative tiles are the regular prices available any other day the store is open, with the exception of the one discount coupon. Unless you have a lot of time to waste and love being in large tight crowds and long lines, don't bother with this so-called "sale".

Worth a stop, if nothing else but to appreciate art in action! The seconds are first in my book.

I do love Motawi tiles very much and think they are beautiful works of art. This rating in no way reflects the actual product, but I, too, like the previous reviewer, attempted to attend the mega sale this morning. I drove about a half hour to get to the store (I had other business in Ann Arbor anyway so it wasn't a total wasted trip) and was shocked at the number of cars in the lot. I have never been to their mega holiday sale before, but I have been wanting the "Perfect Tree" tile and figured today might be the time to get some additional savings on it. The postcard said up to 85% off imperfect art tile, etc. and 25% off any one tile. When I got in the door, I did not see any seconds of the tile I was looking for. There were many firsts so I grabbed one and figured I would at least get 25% off of it. It was then that I attempted to find the end of the incredibly long "checkout" line that wound all throughout the inside of the entire store that I realized that I would be standing in that line for probably an hour just to get about 19 dollars off my tile. Yes, a great savings, but not if you value your time. So, I put the tile back and walked out the door. As I said, this review and rating is not a reflection on the lovely tiles and amazing artistry involved. This is a reflection of a sale that, in my opinion, isn't properly executed in that there are far too many people trying to take advantage of it in too short of a time frame. If Motawi could simply spread the sale over a few days or a Thursday-Sunday time frame, it would alleviate lots of the craziness and more people could walk out with a tile in hand and feel great about their experience. I really wanted that tile for the holidays and would have loved to have gotten it at 25% off. But spending a chunk of a Saturday in December in a very long line in a small space just doesn't appeal to me when there are so many other things that need to be done for the holiday season.