Although most of her early work with Italian sculptor Giuseppe Moretti was done under his name, her best known individual works include Joyous Boy, Pied Piper, the Flimp Fountain, and several Julia Tutwiler sculptures located at the Alabama Department of Archives and History, University of Alabama, and University of Montevallo.

She attended the local village school, where she modeled her first sculpture, a crude red clay bust, at the age of nine.

Tutwiler secured an art teacher from Chicago to teach at the college and give instruction in modeling to Mercer.

Giuseppe Moretti, who had been commissioned by the Commercial Club in 1904 to create the monumental Vulcan statue for the city's display at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, saw Mercer's work and recognized her talent.

They returned to Alabama from 1923 to 1925, where Moretti built a home and studio near his Talladega County marble quarries.