Our owner and founder, Karin Jeske, was one of 9 women from various fields, featured in Inland Empire Magazine's June 2023 article entitled "Women Who Lead," on page 90. Below is the text, by Jeanne Boyer.
KARIN JESKE finds beauty and inspiration in nature for her work, designing cement tiles for her company, Tesselle, a national supplier of exclusive, handmade cement tiles and breeze blocks that are imported from Mexico and Asia.
Jeske spent the first 25 years of her career developing products for retailers and manufacturers. “During this time, I became increasingly interested in tile, and began creating design iterations using my training as a textile designer, along with specialized software,” she says. “When researching a way to launch a collection, I discovered handmade cement tiles, and fell in love with the medium. In 2012, I launched Tesselle with 12 designs, and since then we have expanded our offering to include over 500 unique products, which now also include cement breeze blocks.”
Her tile creations have been especially popular with mid-century modern design enthusiasts. “My original premise was to bring modern design to cement tiles, and the bulk of our customers’ projects still fall into the modern/contemporary category. However, we have expanded our offerings to include hundreds of classic designs as well. A current project is a 700-square-foot cement tile restoration project at Casa de Monte Vista, an events venue in Palm Springs, where we reproduced a classic tile from the early 20th century.”
She also partners with artists Jim Isermann, known for his brightly colored patterns, and Josh Agle (known as the artist Shag), whose mid-century modern designs have been a hit with hipsters and admirers of Swinging Sixties style. “In both cases, I admired their bold and graphic art work, and knew that they would be successful in translating their aesthetic vision into cement tile collections that our customers would love,” Jeske says. – Jeanne Boyer, Inland Empire Magazine
