Hey, I’m Stefanie!

I’ve always loved home design and thus I am unnaturally picky about what I bring into our home. My journey into ceramics came from an intrigue of the art combined with pure frustration of not being able to find pieces I loved like the ones in my head, so I decided to make them! How hard could it be after all? (spoiler alert, it was very hard)

After my beginner pottery class, I was obsessed and thought I had a natural talent for pottery…and then my pieces started to come out of the kiln and I was shocked! I hated every single thing I made. I was discouraged and frustrated and thought I should just quit. I then decided instead of quitting I would take it as a challenge, could I make something useable that even the toughest critic (myself) would like? After a lot of practice and fails, I finally did! Since then I haven’t looked back…except to laugh at some of my horrible beginning pieces which I still own to keep myself humble! 😂

I’ve always put a lot of value in a name and what it means so my makers mark has always been my initials “SM”. When trying to come up with a name for my brand SM didn’t quite feel right though…until I decided to take the lead from Eminem and phonetically spell it out. I then discovered that essem has Latin roots meaning “I was” which felt perfect for pottery that can’t be destroyed. And thus, Essem Ceramics was born.