ALEXIS TELLEFSEN/TELLEFSEN ATELIER

Alexis Tellefsen creates her small batch, wheel-thrown ceramics in her studio in Middletown, New York, 70 miles north of Manhattan in the Hudson Valley. “Throwing in the wheel speaks to me for a few different reasons,” she says. “Most of all, I find the process of throwing incredibly soothing and satisfying. There’s the tactile aspect of smooth clay spinning in my hands and experiencing the different textures of different clays.” That sense of texture and tactility is as evident in Alexis’s finished pieces as it is central to their production: Her work is unmistakably earthy in the best possible sense, connecting buyer to maker to material. Her planter for Bloomist is emblematic of her concerns and aesthetics: neutral colors, graphic lines, and usefulness. “It’s important to me to create simple functional work,” she says. ”Objects that are meant to be used and have a clear purpose in the home but are also beautiful.”