Tracy grew up in Dallas, and she spent her summers on her grandparents farm in Oklahoma. She decided to go to college in San Francisco at the Academy of Art University, where she pursued a double major in Fashion Design and Textile Design. Her true LOVE is silkscreening!!

She also spent a year studying in Paris at the La Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, where Hiner spoke very little French and her teachers spoke absolutely no English. It was a challenge to say the least. In Paris, she interned at Dice Kayak creating designs for embroideries.

After college she moved to Los Angeles to work with fashion designer Jeremy Scott. Tracy worked on engineered prints for Scott’s "Right to Bear Arms" collection. From there she moved on to work as an assistant fashion designer for Louis Verdad.

Hiner eventually moved on from the fashion industry to join an art and design company serving the furniture and design trade. She wore many hats at that company; starting as the assistant to the Sales Manager and quickly moving her way up to designing for their art lines along with managing some large projects that they were producing. She designed for their regular framed art line and also worked on the licensed lines for Jamie Drake, Suzanne Kasler, and created custom work for Amanda Nisbet, amongst many others.

Tracy was a key player in developing a new art line for this art and design company which catered to a new younger, hipper market. She was given a lot more freedom to develop ideas that wouldn't work for their regular line. It debuted at the October 2009 High Point Market. As she was finalizing all those pieces, Hiner was told the company was relocating from Los Angeles to Florida.

Deciding not to relocate, Tracy started out on her own, and Black Crow Studios was created. “I have always loved the idea of creating textile designs that are just one big design with no repeating pattern and I've dreamed of putting something like that up in my house. I knew a lot of people wouldn't "get it" but I figured there are enough people that would to go for it, so here we are”.