Jean Elton Blog

I’ve always loved dinnerware and I especially enjoy setting a table and layering dishes.  That’s why I’m enjoying creating pieces that have a “layered mystery” about them…  The question is… “how is how is that pieces layered and where does the rest of it go?”  It’s almost like each piece has a secret.

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Wow, has our little studio been busy!  Not only have we been steadily working on our project for the Bridgeport Rescue Mission, we’ve been getting ahead and working on Christmas projects as well!

First of all, here’s Lois working on the vases for the BRM.  These vases were poured into slip molds, and then taken apart once the slip (a very wet clay) has dried and taken the shape of the mold.  Then they are taken out of the mold and cleaned up, as Lois is doing here.

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We here at Jean Elton Studio continue to develop many new products.  One such piece is our new teapot, which is handmade from a slip mold of a jar.  A slip mold is a mold made out of plaster that is filled with a very wet clay called slip.  The plaster of the mold begins to absorb some of the water from the slip, which causes it to attach to the sides of the mold.  After a short amount of time (usually about an hour), the molds are turned upside-down to pour out the remaining slip.  They are left like that overnight and then taken apart the next day.  Watch the video for the rest of the process.

In our studio, we have many machines that aid in the production of our pottery, like our pugmill and our slab roller.  The slab roller itself is very unassuming and doesn’t take up space, but we use it to create many different items!

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At Jean Elton Studio, we work exclusively with stoneware and have for over 30 years.  We love stoneware because of its durability in every day use, as well as the ability to dress it up for more formal table settings.

Stoneware is so durable because it is made with clay and then fired at very high temperatures.  We fire our pieces at over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit!  Like its name implies, the resulting material is like stone: hard to break and waterproof.  Many of the dinnerware that you can buy at big box stores are made of another type of porcelain dinnerware and tend to break more easily.  Like Lois says, “While we believe they are of better quality, safer, and better designed than many of the imports currently available in the marketplace, we hope you will want to own them because you love the way they look and feel!”

On a personal note, as the daughter of “Jean” and “Elton”, Read the rest of this entry »

This movie was filmed in Jean Elton Studio and shows the whole process of making our square plates, from making the mold in the beginning, to glazing in the end. These plates in particular were made informally for an executive education class at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Wall-hangings are not a new idea to Jean Elton Studio.  In fact, we’ve been creating wall-hangings for years!  But you might be surprised at how much they’ve changed recently.

If you are unfamiliar with our larger wall-hangings, take a look at them on our website.  The wall-hanging you see there is a four-piece, three-dimensional wall hanging measuring 22″ high and 52″ wide!

But recently we have started creating much smaller wall-hangings like the one you see to the left, for those of you who may not have nearly 5-feet of wall to spare!  Interested in how they are made?  Keep reading! Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve heard us mention using our pugmill.  You’ve even seen pictures of us using our pugmill. But what exactly is a pugmill?

A pugmill is essentially a machine that mixes materials with a liquid.  In pottery, it can be used with clay to achieve the consistency that you are looking for.  It is helpful because it means that leftover clay need not be thrown away, but just stored for later use.  When stored for any period of time, the clay will start to dry out.  Thus, a pugmill is used to mix the dried out clay with water to make the clay soft and workable again. Read the rest of this entry »

As it is the first of the month, we have added some new featured items to our website!  If you’ve been following us on Facebook or Twitter, you would have seen many of the items on there in the process of being made.  If not, check out the following gallery for before and after photos of some of our March Featured Items.  Not all of the “before” pictures are the same piece as the “after” picture, but we hope it gives you an idea of the process.

Jean Elton has its own line of plates that are glazed in a wide variety of colors and designs.  But the process from just an idea of a plate to beautiful, hand-painted one is long.  It begins with an idea, then a drawing, then a complicated process that turns a drawing into a three-dimensional physical object.  That object is then used to create plaster molds, which allow us to replicate the plates over and over again (as you can see in the video below).