Tile Talk Tuesday: A Real Re-Introduction
Hi, I'm Lindsay. And if you're new here — welcome. If you've been here a while — thank you. Either way, I thought it was time to properly introduce myself, not just as the founder of Red Rock Tileworks, but as the whole person behind it.
Growing Up in a Construction Zone
I had my childhood in San Diego with two architect parents, which basically meant life was one long remodel. Mom and dad would buy a home, remodel it, we'd live through the chaos, and as soon as the dust cleared — we'd move and do it all over again. I didn't know it then, but I was getting a design education in real time.
I'd go to my mom's architectural firm on weekends and play with the copy machine, redesign my Ked sneakers, cut up architectural magazines and pretend I was a real estate agent selling the homes inside them. Most importantly, I'd go with my mom to tile stores and help her select tile for our projects. That part always felt significant, even as a kid.
My more formative years were spent in Central Illinois, where I went to high school — and as it turns out, where Red Rock Tileworks would eventually be born.
Choosing Story Over Skill
When it came time for college, I was torn between RISD and Miami of Ohio — two very different paths. I chose Miami, and I've never regretted it. My thinking at eighteen was: I can learn to make art anywhere, but I don't yet know what to make art about. What is art without a soul or a story?
So I built my own degree — a philosophy of interdisciplinary studies with a focus on anthropology and ceramics. Best decision I ever made. It gave me the broader context to eventually pour real meaning into what I create.
My ceramics instructor, Dennis Tobin, introduced me to architectural ceramics and mold making. And then we did a tile project. That was it. Ding ding ding! I didn't know exactly how yet, but I knew I wanted to make tile.
The Colorado Detour & Arizona Epiphany
After graduation I interviewed at tile companies in Pennsylvania and Michigan. They weren't interested in an out-of-state art major. I was devastated and put my dream on the shelf.
So I did what any avid skier would do — I moved to Colorado. I juggled three jobs: hostessing at restaurants, teaching kids ski school in Vail, and doing furniture restoration and faux finishing. It was a great season of life. But after two years I knew I needed to move toward something.
I ended up in Arizona next — surrounded by those stunning red rock landscapes — and that's where the name was born and the vision really started to take shape. Red Rock. It felt right. When the opportunity came along to purchase equipment from Jim and Patty Evanko of ME Tile, I moved back to my hometown in Central Illinois, and built the business from the ground up.
The Real Beginning
Jim and Patty Evanko weren't just selling equipment — they were passing on a lineage. Jim had been deeply active in the Tile Council of North America, and what they handed me along with that kiln and press — the slip cast molds, the traditional hen and chick murals, the floral murals — was a foundation of genuine American handmade craft.
I used that as my launch pad to develop my own designs, modeled the business after the great American handmade tile manufacturers, and in 2006 launched Red Rock Tileworks. My mom and dad helped me build my first trade show booth, worked the show alongside me, and we signed some of my dream clients right out of the gate. It was electric.
The Crash That Clarified Everything
And then 2008 happened.
My dreams of being the biggest, baddest tile maker in the US got very humbled, very quickly. The larger companies I had admired — the ones I'd modeled my business after — went under. They had big kilns with large mouths to feed. Mine were small. I could weather the storm.
That's when staying small became intentional, not just circumstantial. In those early years, a couple of big partnerships kept us going. We did red tile for Target stores across the US, and signed on with Kohler when they launched their Kohler Surfaces program — branded showrooms featuring plumbing and tile across the country. Those larger orders gave us room to breathe while our dealer network grew and got familiar with what we were doing.
The Long, Beautiful Grind
I won't sugarcoat the middle years. There were a lot of them, and I spent many of them personally pushing mud into molds and sweating it out in the shop. I moved to Nashville in 2011, and watched this city slowly, then all at once, become something remarkable. The hospitality industry exploded. A world class design community emerged. And they found us.
The real turning point was 2020. As the traditional wholesale landscape shifted, I leaned deeper into selling direct and building trade relationships — not to walk away from my wholesale dealers, many of whom I've worked with for years and genuinely love, but to add a more direct channel that let me fully serve the designers and clients who wanted hands-on collaboration. My husband encouraged me toward it too — stop chasing channels that don't fully understand what you do, and work with people who get it. He was right.
Who I Am Now
These days I'm running Red Rock Tileworks and co-owning Haustile, raising a seven and six-year-old with my wonderfully wild husband, and finding balance on my yoga mat and at our little cabin on thirty-six acres of Tennessee woods — ten minutes from the city but a whole world away. When I round that corner into the country and the trees close in, I exhale in a way I can't fully explain. Nashville gives me energy. Those rolling hills give me back myself.
Our tile aesthetic is eclectic and always evolving — driven by travel, other artists, what our designers are dreaming, and what just feels right in the moment. Ceramics is spontaneous like that. Made-to-order isn't always perfectly predictable. Equipment has opinions. Raw materials shift. But we pivot, we communicate, and we make sure every piece that leaves here is the best tile possible.
Behind it all is a team that doesn't just clock in. We show up ready to pound down.
To the Young Artists Reading This
If there's one thing I hope this story does, it's inspire you. Not just to make beautiful things — but to believe that building a creative life is possible, even when the door gets slammed in your face, even when you're hustling three jobs on a mountain in Colorado wondering what the heck you're doing.
You can do this. It is not going to be easy. You will work harder for yourself than you ever would for anyone else. But it is a wild ride, and the rewards go so far beyond financial. The satisfaction of continuing to create, to make beautiful things, to work alongside cool and talented people — that is something no paycheck can fully capture.
Keep making. Keep going. I'm rooting for you.