We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stephanie Martin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stephanie below.

Stephanie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

As a child, I often felt overwhelmed when thinking about what I wanted to be “when I grew up.” My family was full of artists—painters, designers, writers, musicians, fiber artists—and I cherished the creativity that my family brought to my life. Meals were homemade and infused with love and prayers from my mother and grandmother. Looking back, I often felt a bit like Mirabel Madrigal from Encanto: everyone had a magical gift of art… except me. I thought of myself as a “receiver” not an artist, but someone who felt deeply connected with it, and longed to experience it flowing through myself.

As I grew older, I struggled with the idea of a traditional 9-to-5 job—but that’s exactly where I landed. At 25, I was working in insurance in Nashville, TN. The work was stable and well-paying, but I was deeply unfulfilled. Around that time, a series of life events led me to clay as a form of art therapy. I realized I wasn’t so different from my family; I just hadn’t yet found my medium. From the moment I discovered clay, I was captivated and eager to explore how it could find permanence in my life.

I carved out a small workspace in my apartment, balancing my job from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. with nights at the wheel, throwing until midnight and beyond most evenings. It was in those late-night sessions, balancing corporate life and clay, that I knew I needed to leave the corporate world. When I finally told my boss and colleagues I was walking away from salary, benefits, and a 401k to become a potter, many of them looked at me like I had ten heads. But for the first time, I was doing work that made me come alive. And of course, I had great support from my family.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I began my ceramics career in 2015 when a dear friend and I opened a studio together. We designed and produced functional wares, selling them through our storefront, online, and to cafés and restaurants. Our wedding registry also kept us pretty busy, and those early years taught me the rhythm of production, collaboration, creative entrepreneurship, and how to run a studio.

In 2020, we arrived in our 5th year. In sticking with our original business plan, we divided our studio and moved into our own spaces to focus on our individual fine art practices. Thankfully, we still find ways to collaborate through exploring new techniques and special projects.

From 2020 to 2023, I kept a quiet home studio while devoting most of my energy to motherhood and raising mine and my husbands three children. That period was both challenging and transformative for my creative life. My sister’s gentle encouragement to “just go touch clay”, my husband’s firmness in never allowing me to sell it all and quit, and my mothers gentle loving nudges of encouragement and affirmation, kept me connected to my practice when I felt ready to give it up. Those years reshaped my understanding of balance, patience, and creativity. They were absolutely paramount to my development (in more ways than just an artist) and I cherish them so deeply.

Today, my work flows through my life like a tidal current—steady, evolving, and deeply connected to my family. Metamorphosis began before my first pregnancy but was refined and deepened through the early years of motherhood. I’ve learned to create in rhythm with each season of life, allowing flexibility to shape my practice. This body of work explores transformation, resilience, and the female experience through clay.

My greatest intrigue lies in pushing my medium to its physical limits—seeing how far I can move porcelain and stoneware before the clay resists my ideas or hopes for it. I’m equally fascinated by how viewers respond to these forms: how they interpret fragility, strength, and movement. Ultimately, my goal is to create work that invites curiosity and contemplation, offering moments of stillness and connection in a fast-moving, tech – driven world where human experience can often feel fragmented.

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

My creative mission is in transformation. Equally in the materials I work with and within myself. I work hard to embrace my mistakes and accidents, With the intention of allowing these unforeseen moments to serve as guides in my practice, seeing in them opportunities for discovery, reflection, and healing. These moments of imperfection become integral to each piece, allowing the work to carry a narrative of self-forgiveness and resilience.

At the same time, I am inspired by nature and ecosystems. I love to explore the rhythms, interconnections, and cycles of growth and eventual decay through my forms. My work is also a meditation on the feminine, examining how strength, vulnerability, and resilience coexist in a very powerful way. I continually push myself to understand clay more fully, exploring its vast history, and physical limits. In this way, each piece becomes both a personal and material inquiry, a space where process, discovery, and the natural world intersect to create work that invites contemplation, emotional engagement, and a recognition of beauty in what cannot be fully controlled. I’m only at what feels like the very beginning of this endeavor.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

It may sound a bit cliché, but the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is bringing something into the world that evokes thought and emotion. Furthermore, creating something that carries a sense of permanence. Each piece I create becomes a kind of time capsule and a reflection of my life that remains long after I am gone from this world. Knowing that my children, or others who experience the work, can feel my presence through it is deeply meaningful to me, I find it especially rewarding when my work brings a loving or calming feeling into someone’s home. Hearing feedback that my pieces have touched others in this way is one of the greatest joys of my work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.stephaniemartinceramics.com
• Instagram: @stephanie.martin.ceramics

Image Credits

Peri McIntosh