If you've visited almost any retail store this past week, you may have noticed that they are already preparing for Christmas. Well, if they are, then so can we! This week, artists Lois and Kathy began creating Jean Elton Christmas ornaments. Here's a picture tour of the first part of the process.
First, the clay is rolled into large slabs.
Kathy and Lois have decided on a large variety of shapes!For that, they use cookie cutters.
The cookie cutters are placed on the slab of clay.They try to fit in as many as possible.
Here, Lois and Kathy are using straws to poke holes in each ornament.
Each ornament is then removed from the cookie cutter and placed on a tray.
Next, they are all stamped with the Jean Elton logo.
The ornaments need to remain flat until they are completely dry.Believe it or not, this is only a small fraction that have been made!
After the ornaments have been given a chance to dry, they will need to have the edges cleaned up. Then, they will be fired in the kiln, in what is called a bisque firing (or the first firing). After the bisque, each ornament will be hand-painted with various colored glazes by Lois, Kathy, and other Jean Elton artists. Then they will need to be fired again.
Check back in a few weeks for pictures of these next steps of the process!
My mother-in-law is a painter and we have some of her beautiful watercolor paintings around our house. She painted a lot of flowers, but most of her work was very abstract. Before I started hand-painting our dishes, I would look at her work and wonder if I could translate some of that beauty onto our pottery. In the beginning, I would try to draw a perfect flower, but soon I realized that perfection wasn't as interesting as different shapes and designs. Instead, I started drawing flowers, not worrying whether or not they were perfect, and then complement them with abstract shapes that I would later paint in all different colors. That is how the latest Jean Elton designs were born. I use water color glazes to achieve the bright and varied colors that I saw in my mother-in-law's paintings. And then I just draw and see where the shapes and colors take me.
Lois Barker is a founder and Managing Director of Jean Elton Studio & Gallery, LLC. A mostly self-taught artist that has been working with clay for the past 30 years. Ms. Barker studied ceramics briefly at the University of Hartford, CT."I enjoy making new designs of tableware and decorating them by hand. I use the dishes in my own home for color, variety and the basis of table decorations that are just fun. I also like working in slabs so that I can press simple but tasteful designs into my work."I make every single piece we sell in Fairfield County, Connecticut. We use time-honored forms and techniques to achieve our widely-admired beauty and functionality, using my own designs entirely--we do not have a factory in China! Our products are stoneware: this means they are more durable, safe and creative than what one sees in the "big box" stores. Although we're proud of our products here and feel that they're better quality than the imports, please don't buy our products for these reasons alone! Buy our products because you love the way they look and feel. That's why we love them!"