13th Annual Tile Festival Connects a Unique Art Community

Hundreds of visitors graced the sunny grounds of the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works in Doylestown Saturday afternoon for the 13th annual Tile Festival – or what James Mowery refers to as “The Tile Mecca.”

Mowery, 36, recently took over Peace Valley Tile Works in New Britain, but says he still considers himself to be a kid who just likes to play in the mud.

“I grew up next to an artisan and I remember snagging clay and making little snakes out of it,” he said, standing in front of a colorful wall of his recent ceramic creations – sans snake.

His lifelong passion for tile is shared by many of the vendors who return year after year to the nationally renowned festival.

But each story is different.

Bill Sheshko, or “Bungalow Bill,” as fellow crafters call him, began collecting antique tiles after a failed zoo keeping job left him low on money. When a friend recommended he visit an auction for some cheap furniture, he fell in love with ceramics. For 10 years now, he’s had a booth at the festival that boasts old tiles crafted from 1850 to 1970.

One cubicle over is Carol Rydel of Hippiechick Tiles, a collection of colorful and cartoony fish, skulls and guitars. Rydel, a grade school teacher who was introduced to mosaics through a mural project at her school, said her designs are inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration – and the creativity of other vendors.

“Every collection is so amazingly different from one to the next,” she said.

Three tents with more than 50 vendors from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and as far as Colorado, California and Canada, shared their wares with excited shoppers – making this year’s festival the best to date, according to Vance Koehler, curator of the

“We strive to be a leader in the world of contemporary art tiles,” he added.

Virginia tile fanatics Laura Abbott and Dave Roberts visited the festival for the first time this year and compared it to the best tile work they have seen in their travels around the globe.

“It’s special that the work done here is handmade,” Roberts said, referencing Henry Mercer’s vision to exclude technology from the crafting process. “It’s built on aesthetic.”

The aesthetic of this year’s Tile Festival ranged from the traditional and natural – real plants and flowers pressed and stained into the tile of Virginia’s Piney Mountain Plate and Tile – to the whimsical and wacky Swanson TV dinner tile from Gregory Hicho Designs, or the “bad schoolgirl’s” gift to teacher – a ceramic apple core made by Katia McGuirk Tile Co.

Aside from the opportunity to do business, Sheila Menzies and Joe Taylor of the Tile Heritage Foundation in tiny Healdsburg, Calif., said they look forward to coming to Doylestown’s Tile Festival each year to see familiar faces and fellow crafters.

“The Moravian Tile Works stands out as the place to go in the art-tile world,” Taylor said. “And the community here is so art-tile conscious. The combination is really second to none.”