Created: March 19, 2021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BY:

THE TILEWORKS OF BUCKS COUNTY

Attorney Contact: Christopher P. Coval, Esquire

Phone: 617-447-0424 (Chris Coval)

E-mail: ccoval@fsdc-law.com

Contact: Katia McGuirk, Executive Director

Phone: 267-716-0392

E-mail: katia@katiatiles.com

The Tileworks of Bucks County is a Pennsylvania nonprofit corporation formed specifically for the purpose of continuing and advancing the mission of the Moravian Pottery & Tile Works as a working history museum. Bucks County will continue to own the entire facility and all of the historical artifacts. The County will exercise robust oversight at all times, and it will appoint one of the trustees of the nonprofit organization. Moreover, the nonprofit plans to retain two of the long-time employees of the museum in order to maintain continuity of operations. The nonprofit will have a license to operate the museum consistent with its historical purposes and as a National Historic Landmark. The museum will remain open to the public for tours, classes, and educational workshops for public use and enjoyment, and the museum’s historic tiles will continued to be made in the arts and crafts tradition, using the approved historical processes and molds. The nonprofit will be committed, at all times, to exercising museum best practices, employing the industry standard degree of professional skill and competence in managing and using the museum and its historical treasures for public use. We are especially excited to have the opportunity to begin the extensive work of building, for the first time, an online index of the museum’s molds, ephemera and historic objects and to build relationships with other museums and institutions to increase the public visibility and accessibility of the museum’s wonderful historical artifacts and traditions.

The Katia Tiles Story

Katia McGuirk was born in Maryland farm country into a lineage of civic and political leaders, activists and agriculturalists. From her early years on her family’s Marylea Farm, she has always been up to her knees in mud with her head in the clouds. She would leave the farm to study ceramics at the Rhode Island School of Design, after which she began making tiles and renovating houses in Newport R.I. 

As an entrepreneur she grew her street-level art tile studio business by designing, manufacturing and installing hand-made tile nationally, for thirty-five years. 

As an Artist in Residence and teacher, she combines her avocation with her vocation: introducing ceramic and mosaic-making into school curriculums; not-for-profit sector, she leads, inspires and organically meets the needs of communities by producing tile murals and building platforms that amplify stories, create legacies, and promote social change. Her designs are interactive and therapeutic in nature.  

Nine years ago, ​Katia was invited to The Village of Arts and Humanities in Philadelphia by Lily Yeh.She was commissioned to reinvigorate the Village Clay Workshop. In her toolbox, she brought 20 years of teaching and 31 years of entrepreneurial experience. She teaches how vision, hard work, storytelling, empathy and design can empower students to tune into their passions to create their own unique and sustainable reality.

As a director of The Tile Heritage Foundation, a national organization that  preserves and protects our nation's tile surfaces, practices and history since 1876 to present. Katia seeks to bridge the tile community and increase the visibility and relevance of the movement from the maker to the museum.  

As a practicing studio artist, Katia regularly exhibits her ceramic sculptures in solo and group shows in galleries and museums such as Fonthill Museum, Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, and The Clay Rat.

Down to earth and all fired up, Katia envisions a better world and molds it out of clay.