Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mercedes Austin. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Mercedes thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
For me, I’ve been an artist all my life, however, it wasn’t clear how I could turn that into something professional. I watched my mom struggle with that her whole life and putting food on the table had nothing to do with her art. My clarity on the path I wanted to pursue happened once I noticed a sense of dignity in my work. I still remember the moment in my mind as if it were last month. At the time, I was in my early 20’s and had prioritized going to parties, consuming too many substances and being up until all hours of the night. It was hardly the productive life, and it was doing nothing for my health. I recall one of these blurred evenings I was telling people about what I do and seeing their reaction and fascination. I then realized my own sense of dignity as I described being a tile maker and talking about the studio I was employed in. I started to pay attention to how I felt about myself as I explored this new craft of tile making. With each week and each month, I felt more and more like I was finding my purpose. After 20+ years into this craft, I’ve been sober, focused and even more passionate about the possibilities of the craft today than when I was in those early years. I honestly feel that tile woke me up and gave me a purpose in life to pursue.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Mercedes Austin, I was born and raised in Minneapolis and have a fondness for this city that goes deep. My parents were artists, industrial designers, and craftsman, I grew up surrounded by a world of endless historic renovation in the heart of the city. My childhood was a canvas of invention – exploring and imagining without limits, even being encouraged to entertain myself by coloring on the walls. I was also a latchkey kid and often reminded, if I ever acknowledged I was bored, my mom would say to me: “Mercedes, boredom comes from within”. While I question this statement being delivered to a 7 year old repeatedly, for me it eventually stuck and from a very early age I figured out how to entertain myself. I also learned how to earn extra cash in my neighborhood to do things, go on field trips, and try new experiences. These early adventures shaped me into being an entrepreneur since childhood, I would say.
I founded Mercury Mosaics in 2002 after learning the basic bones of tile making while having this grand vision of what I saw tile could be. I had a very modest seed fund from the sale of my Jazz CD collection, a recent invitation to design tile for a trend showcase home & a sizable order for my home accessory line. At the time, I felt like I had a huge sum of money, when in reality it was no more than $3K, but everything is relative!
Mercury Mosaics has grown from a single studio artist with a dream to 40 team members strong. We have skills across the board in marketing, finance, HR, artistry, sales, manufacturing and so many things that it takes to build what we are today. We’re still operating with roots as a mosaic art studio, while over time we’ve adapted aspects of the practice to be friendly at the scale we’ve become.
The studio is like a bakery for tile which offers a concierge-style selection process with through our design team.
Our craftsmanship brings art to life in your space, transforming your brand, vision, or daily vibe. Through hospitality and dedication, we make your dream designs a reality. I’m driven by the belief that art, construction, and design can all exist in harmony. I wake up each day with this purpose fueling me. My personal motto is “Never Give Up”
At the end of the day, the problem we’re solving with our clients is ensuring the space they’re just poured significant investment into is paired with tile that not only expresses them or their brand, but also is in harmony with the space. We believe that good design has the power to uplift a space and in turn adds life to the people who occupy the space.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
With anything you invest time in, in order to receive a return on your time, you must be genuine. Who you are shines through, so take the time to have that be the case. It’s important to start where you are and know there are no shortcuts. Make goals with each month and gamify it so it’s an enjoyable process. Give yourself small victories along the way and most importantly, have a purpose and strategy. On social media, if you’re just posting because you’ve decided you need “x” posts and “y” reels for that week, your audience will feel it. We’ve even hit these walls. If you dial back the output of decent content and increase the quality, it’s magic. Your audience will feel it and that’s where the true growth happens. Just know that burn out can happen to the best of us, so have grace with yourself and be willing to evaluate your own actions and outcomes and adapt. It’s really the only way to stay in charge of your own success instead of blaming it on algorithms. I’ve always been fond of this quote by Charles Darwin: “It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” If you keep this in mind, it really can ground you to keep in mind there is always change and what worked well for you and your brand last quarter may not be what gets you there this quarter. Finally, remember to have fun. Life, business and social media are hard, find the parts about it that bring joy and keep that alive in your feeds.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Over the last 4 years there are a jillion examples of having to pivot, so I’ll choose the first one that came to mind and that is when all the raw materials related to glaze were disrupted. We were becoming filled with tiles coming out of our kilns that were not turning out the correct colors to fulfill orders. This got really scary as a small business because you’re paying your crew, so you have to pay for people’s time over and over to correct the orders, you’ve got piles of materials that cannot be used in orders and you have to buy more materials and use more energy to make the orders and the timelines for the clients getting their tile is delayed and thus getting paid for the work is delayed. It stresses me out just to type this!
There were two options with this gigantic catastrophe which was happening regularly during the COVID years, one option was to curl up in a ball and cry in a corner while slowly rocking yourself. That option crossed my mind. Several times, in fact, however there really wasn’t time to have a breakdown like that, so instead the other option was a pivot to use our waste with intention and lean into the uptick of handmade tile imperfections. From this option, we’ve now created ways to sell what we call small batch tile, we’ve begun to create mosaic wall art, we’ve incorporated our rejects into large scale custom work through re-cutting the tile into new shapes and finally we’ve repurposed tile waste into a new sister brand called Mosaic Candy Shop (MCS). MCS uses upcycled tile that’s been cut into new shapes to go into kits that people can use to learn the craft of mosaic. Each kit comes with everything you need to make a mosaic in the comfort of your home guided by a video tutorial. https://mosaiccandyshop.com/pages/about
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mercurymosaics.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mercurymosaics/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mercedesaustin/
- Other: https://mosaiccandyshop.com
Image Credits
All Photos courtesy of Mercury Mosaics