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John Ellefson | Episode 1101
As a sensitive and intuitive person, working with clay is a perfect fit for John Ellefson. Clay slabs are minutely sensitive to the slightest touch, allowing John to create the subtle forms that he loves. It’s incredibly satisfying for John to breathe life into clay through touch.
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Do you see a change of pets going from being a family pet to more of a family member?
That’s an interesting question. My answer to that is definitely yes, but I have never thought about that before. It could be that I live in a city that at one point and time had more pets than children. And so pets by nature of this population have a lot of importance but I think definitely, for sure.
Why is a beautiful urn an important thing for a pet owner to have for their pet?
Well, that’s a good question. I think that my urns serve to honor memory of the pets or people that are inhabiting the inside of that urn. It just feels really important to me that the outside is going to do the inside justice.
Do you ever have conversations before and make a kind of collaboration or do you make the product and then someone buys the product?
Definitely some of both. Some people have specific visions of how they want the urn to be and other people are like, Can you make this in that color? And they are fine. There is a really wide range of people and personality type about how they approach that.
Why do you think there are people who want to keep that connection with their pet in their home like that?
Well I have definitely come across people for whom their attachment to their pet is way stronger than it could have ever been for a person. And I can speculate a to why but I have seen that first hand and so it makes absolute sense that they would want something special.
Is working with a veterinarian or a local cremation place a recommended approach to take?
It has been the key to success for me, doing wholesale work, for sure. I think wholesale work can be difficult because you are not earning the full value of the piece that you are selling. But for me the market is very specialized. I don’t necessarily have access in a way that a pet funeral home would have or that the veterinarians would have.
What do you do to have fun when you are not in the studio?
Well, spending time with my family for sure. I enjoy coaching my daughter’s soccer team and as a family we like to go on family bike rides. And I also like designing tools, (laughter) which is also done for fun.
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Instagram: @john.ellefson