Since 2020, Monmade has featured Emmanuelle Wambach’s everyday collection of ceramic dinnerware featuring lace motifs. Inspired by her mother’s love of flowers and gardening, Emmanuelle combines different texturing, carving, glazing, and under-glazing techniques to create slab-built pieces. With Green Leap, Monmade launched Emmanuelle’s first lighting products that embrace biophilic design principles—that is, our inherent need to bring nature into the modern built environment.
Emmanuelle Ceramic’s Fauna Textured Sconces pair handcrafted stoneware shades pressed with natural textures. The textures are made using foraged organic materials, including magnolia leaves and oak branches, which mimic the layers of a tree canopy or forest floor when pressed in multiples. The subdued matte underglaze finishes recall natural hues.
“When creating my lights, I thought about their overall appeal and impact on a person’s mental health and well-being. I’m also using finishes that can diffuse or reflect the light to give it a more natural tone. Harsh lights can be terrible for people, so having something that diffuses the light or makes it more natural is usually great for the occupant of a space.”
Fauna Textured Sconces are available in Magnolia Leaves and Oak Branches textures in three colorways, Jade Green, Amethyst Blue, and Rose Pink. As single sconces, these newest versions will offer ambient accent lighting. Other natural textures and layered disc installations are possible with customization.
Our current collection of Emmanuelle’s work also includes lace motif tableware. Offering beauty and artistry for residential and commercial use, these plates and platters are slab-built and impressed with assorted lace patterns. Available in six sizes and four standard glazes with white or brown clay bodies, the dinnerware offers a collected look when mixed and matched.
Through our assessment of her studio and processes, Emmanuelle Ceramics achieves five of Monmade’s six dimensions of sustainability: environment, climate, human health, social equity, and eco-labeling.
Woman- and Black-owned creative business.
Producer works from her home-based studio in Pittsburgh, PA; she is finishing, glazing, and firing at a proximate shared studio space in the Union Project.
Sourcing ceramic materials from Standard Ceramics in Carnegie, PA, located within 11 miles of producer’s primary facilities.
Producer recycles waste materials from her manufacturing process and is re-using them in other products; extra clay that can be reworked is re-bagged, while any that is too hard is placed in a bucket for reclamation later.
Reusing water and containers, which she uses for craft projects in her job in youth education. Producer is also conducting community workshops using reclaimed items.
Lighting products are either UL-Certified or use UL-listed components. Producer usesdomestic third-party manufacturing for the UL Certification and assembly of her lights, including manufacturing support partners in Derry, PA and Denver, CO.
Lighting product hardware components feature a Low VOC powder-coated finishes, and no adhesives are used for connections and/or during assembly.
Learn more about Monmade’s holistic approach to sustainability.
Monmade’s holistic approach to sustainability is described by our Dimensions of Sustainability. Rooted in our team’s knowledge of responsible manufacturing processes for small businesses, our six defined dimensions inform our assessments of artisan producers and their products. Our producers and their products achieve a dimension when they meet one or more of that dimension’s defined criteria.
Using sustainable materials including recycled, reclaimed, or bio-based materials, prioritizing sustainable vendors and local sourcing, minimizing environmental impact of facility and/or manufacturing waste, publicizing sustainability practices, planning for responsible growth
Climate
Manufacturing at and/or within 100 miles of primary business location, using renewable energy sources, reducing energy consumption, reducing water consumption, measuring carbon footprint, seeking reduction of use of non-renewable resources
Human Health
Products contributing to safe indoor and/or outdoor air quality, using low-to-zero VOC adhesives/sealants/finishes/paints, products comply with specific industry standards including UL and ADA, providing adequate safety and personal protection equipment for employees, safely using/storing/disposing of materials and/or finishes, using and/or encouraging green cleaning methods for products, recommending responsible installation and/or maintenance of products
Social Equity
Business is women and/or minority owned, workforce is more than 50% women and/or minorities, located in an LMI area, hiring local workforce, contributing portion of profits to charitable organizations, practicing public stewardship, offering employee benefits, providing wage transparency
Circular Economy
Designing products for zero-impact, reuse, and the elimination of waste throughout the entire life-cycle of the product. A circular system often includes (but not limited to) using sustainable materials (e.g. bio-based, reclaimed), safe and efficient manufacturing, durability, using sustainable packaging materials, and a plan for end-of-life
Eco-Labels
Indicates when producers/products/ product components are independently certified/verified for their environmental attribute claims by a third-party organization; certifications/ verifications can be for single attribute claims such as FSC or multiple attribute claims such as EPD, HPD, and life-cycle analysis
