About Dale Wiley

I have loved tiles for as long as I can remember, having started collecting and photographing "pretty tiles" as a child. It is fascinating to me that so many people share my own response to tiles. Humans seem to be drawn to objects made of clay. Show them a tile, and they reach out to touch the surface and murmur their delight.

The idea of being a tile maker came during a muddled period when I was suffering teacher burnout, and in my confusion about my chosen profession, I was trying to decide what to do about it. One morning, after seeing a slide presentation the night before on adobe construction around the world that included incredible mosque mosaics in Iran, I awoke with a neon sign flashing TILE in my mind. That is how this odyssey began. I resigned from teaching and began a search for an apprenticeship in tile making that led me to the Mendocina Art Center in northern California.

The River Nile series of press-molded tiles is the result of a lifelong attraction to everything Egyptian; others of my tiles express an appreciation of Oriental subtlety; and many tile designs show the influence of travel in Mexico, Europe, and Morocco, or the years I spent in New Mexico as a teacher at Taos Pueblo.

My work is slow and labor-intensive, repetitive, but never boring. I suppose my production methods reveal my personal reaction to the industrial revolution and to the high-tech world of the 1980s and 90's. At any rate, I find it intrinsically satisfying to work with my hands and to make beautiful tiles that people enjoy living with.