Inside a workshop on North Walnut Avenue, a small team at Mammoth Clay Company is making and glazing ceramic tiles that will soon form a hummingbird and flower mural outside the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality's parking garage. It is the family-owned clay manufacturer's first public art installation, and the tiles are on track to go up in November.
The project, called “Root + Wing,” was designed by Oklahoma artist Matt Goad and will sit on either side of the DEQ building's entrance, according to The Journal Record. The design calls for a two-part mosaic mural made from locally sourced Oklahoma clay, conceived as two facing exterior walls meant to be in dialogue with one another, symbolizing ecological interdependence and stewardship, per the project's description. The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality announced in September 2025 that Goad had been selected by the Oklahoma Art in Public Places Oversight Committee to create the artwork for the new facility's facade.
Turning Clay Into a Puzzle of Coded Tiles
Producing the mural has meant treating the clay-making process like precision engineering. The Mammoth Clay team measures and cuts each tile piece using oversized, water-resistant plastic stencils, and every tile carries its own code labeled on the back to track its place in the larger design, the report notes. That bookkeeping matters because the custom tiling process requires exact math to ensure each piece fits the larger puzzle once it is installed.
Firing introduces its own math problem. Mammoth Clay's formula has an 8 percent shrinkage rate, so the team has to account for how much each piece will shrink during two separate high-temperature firings before the tiles ever reach the wall. Sage Eden Smith, one of three clay artists hand-sculpting the tiles, said the tiling project developed slowly and naturally, and that the team collaborated to work out how to account for the clay's shrinkage across the firing process.
From Studio Potter to Tile Manufacturer
Smith joined Mammoth Clay as creative projects manager after 12 years of independent studio work, brought on by company founder Michael Khodabakhsh, who wanted to cultivate local artistry through tile manufacturing. Smith began taking pottery classes at age 14 at Paseo Pottery and has worked at Mammoth Clay since the company began making clay in 2023, testing clay formulations and training to make handmade tile. Producing the mural's tiles has involved mixing custom glazes and applying them by hand, then tracking each coded piece through both firings.
Amber Sharples said Mammoth Clay is a great example of what can happen when Oklahoma artists are also recognized as entrepreneurs, manufacturers and business owners, according to the same Journal Record account. Beyond the tiles for Root + Wing, Mammoth Clay produces raw clay and glazes using its own recipes and sells those products to schools, studios and artists across the United States from its facility at 4221 N. Walnut Ave., per Mammoth Clay Company.
A State Mandate Built Into the Construction Budget
Root + Wing is funded through the Oklahoma Art in Public Places program, which the Oklahoma Arts Council has managed since 2015. Under the Oklahoma Art in Public Places Act, enacted in 2004, state capital improvement projects costing more than $250,000 must set aside 1.5 percent of expenditures for public art, with spending capped at $500,000 per project, according to state statute. The mandate has not always been guaranteed: Oklahoma lawmakers imposed a temporary three-year moratorium on the 1.5 percent requirement in 2011 amid state budget shortfalls before the program was reactivated, according to the Oklahoma Gazette.
The mural will be installed on a building still under construction. Demolition of the DEQ's previous parking garage began in early 2025, with the full facility not expected to be complete until early 2027, according to the department's original announcement. That leaves the November tile installation arriving well ahead of the garage's own finish line.
Goad's Growing Footprint Across Oklahoma City
Root + Wing is one of several major commissions for Goad, who has become one of the state's most visible public artists. He previously designed “OKConnected,” a 44,000-square-foot terrazzo floor and 4,000-square-foot etched glass installation for the $80 million terminal expansion at Will Rogers World Airport, which opened in September 2021, per Goad's portfolio. In 2022, he created “Mechanics of Dreams,” a mosaic mural made from more than 800 numbered and cataloged fused-glass tiles.
This past July, the Oklahoma City Council approved Goad's design. Collaborations such as Mammoth Clay's help explain why officials like Sharples point to artists functioning as manufacturers and business owners in their own right.
