We recently connected with Emily Reinhardt and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Emily thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I have always felt incredibly grateful to my teachers and those who showed me how to become an artist and think creatively and critically simultaneously. I’ve always wanted to find a way to pay forward by sharing my knowledge and creative style while hopefully inspiring others along the way. Which led me to write my first book! I spent the summer of 2022 writing and completing The Beginner’s Guide to Decorating Pottery – a book that demonstrates various techniques and project ideas for designing, glazing, and finishing ceramic works. It was a project I never saw coming in my career but has opened an entirely new direction and way of teaching for me. My book will be published in September of 2023 but is available for preorder right now!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Emily Reinhardt and I’m the ceramic artist and designer behind The Object Enthusiast. I started my business in 2011 selling my ceramic work online and through various retailers across the world. I received my BFA from Kansas State University and was really encouraged and motivated to become an artist when I landed in the ceramics department. I felt like I met people who I really connected with creatively, and my teachers were some of the biggest motivators for me. After graduation, my professor Yoshi Ikeda gifted me his kiln, his wheel, and some other critical ceramics equipment. He told me that what stood out to him was how hard I was working and how clear it was that I had found something I was passionate about. The gift of his old equipment was the catalyst that I needed so that I could continue working in ceramics, and I’ve managed to do that for the last 12 years. My brand and my business have evolved over the last several years, and now I primarily work on small ceramic collections each year, a handful of commissions, as well as keeping my brick-and-mortar shop, Duet, fully stocked with my work.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I haven’t quite unlearned this one yet, so it’s something I’m actively working on, but I am really trying to abandon perfection. I have held myself and my work and my business to unrealistically high standards, and I think striving for perfection has made my job overly complicated. It steals the joy out of playful creation if I’m being too rigid with my expectations. The ceramic process requires a level of flexibility and a willingness to change the plans in the middle of the build, and if I’m trying to be too perfect this always leads to disappointment. A lot of ideas live in my head and never get made because I hold onto them until I believe they’re perfect. Instead, I’m aiming to get in the habit of diving in right away when the idea or the inspiration comes. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to get made and get started. The “perfecting” and the refining can come later, but it’s always okay if it doesn’t come at all. My audience and my collectors have always responded to the work I make, and it’s funny how many people respond positively to my experiments and imperfect works. They want to see what it looks like when I take a creative risk, and perfection has been feeling far too limiting lately.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I have always felt that objects and special mementos hold memories and special meaning to the beholder, I’m a collector so I hold onto keepsakes and art that might remind me of someone or a special time in my life. These objects represent a lovely feeling, and I turn to them when I’m feeling nostalgic. I aim to create objects that bring this same kind of joy and meaning into someone else’s world. I work hard to pour love and my magic into the clay as I’m working and building, and I believe that when I’m at my best and operating as my highest self, out of love and gratitude, this energy gets transferred into the pieces I make and that transfers into the homes and the hands of someone else. This cycle of sharing love through my art and the pieces I create gives my studio practice meaning.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theobjectenthusiast.com
• Instagram: @theobjectenthusiast
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shoptheobjectenthusiast
• Other: Link to preorder my book: The Beginner’s Guide to Decorating Pottery https://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Decorating-Pottery-Introduction/dp/0760381399

Image Credits
Images are from my book and were shot by Marcea Corbin