A PASSION FOR SCULPTING
A FAIRFIELD COUPLE’S HOBBY EVOLVED INTO THEIR POTTERY BUSINESS
When Lois and Bill Barker counsel young couples about lasting relationships, they have their own marriage to use as an example. “We mentor couples at our church,” said Lois Barker, referring to the Black Rock Church in Fairfield. “And one of the things that we say to them is that it’s totally, vitally, important that you have something to do together that will keep you together, keep you excited about each other and what you’re each doing. And I would say pottery is that for us.”
The Barkers have been married since 1973 and have run a pottery business called Jean Elton for about as long. The title combines the couple’s middle names, Jean and Elton, and the two maintain a pottery studio in their Fairfield home.
The story of Jean Elton’s founding dates back to 1974, just after Bill graduated from West Point, and just after the couple originally from the Rochester, N.Y., area, got married. Bill was assigned to Fort Still, Okla., and it was there the newlyweds discovered a common interest that would become their life-long passion.
“Bill was in the military, and we were stationed in Fort Still,” recalled Lois. “We decided to go to a recreation center,
because we heard that they had a pottery studio there. We went there to learn to pour molds, and instead, we found that they were working on a potter’s wheel. I don’t know why, but Bill and I together just went crazy over the wheel. We both were addicted to the point that Bill actually made a potter’s wheel and put it in our bedroom in our rented apartment, and we threw pottery in the bedroom,” she laughed, “with wall-to-wall car
peting.”
“It got pretty ugly,” added Bill.
The following year, Bill was transferred to Germany, and the couple took their interest in ceramics overseas. “We didn’t really think of bringing the pottery with us,” said Bill. “We thought of it really at the time only as just a stop gap. But when we got to Germany, we realized we missed it. I built a kiln, and we bought a wheel, and we started making pottery over there in my free time. Lois did it virtually full time.”
“I think our interest in pottery came about very naturally,” said Lois. “Bill was very involved in the glaze process, and I wasn’t interested in that at all. He was great on the wheel. I was better at hand building. So we complemented each other.”
They started selling at craft shows in Germany and Bill discovered he enjoyed the business side of it as well as the creative. He took business courses while stationed in Germany, and right after he left the military he attended Dartmouth College, earning a masters’ degree from the Tuck School of Business in 1980.
Jean Elton continued to thrive during this time. The couple had pieces in galleries in Texas and Oklahoma, and they ran their own gallery in Vermont that featured their works and works by others.
After he graduated from Dartmouth, Barker got a job with GE Capital in Stamford following a stint with Aetna Life and Casualty. The couple bought a home in Fairfield in 1986, and have lived there ever since.
Their daughter, Amy, was born in the early ‘80s, and for several years the Barkers took care of Lois’ mother, before she died in 2002, so pottery was not their primary concern for a period of time. “I always did some things. I showed at the Made in America show at the Javits Center, for example. But what we were making were very primitive things, with browns, beiges, and tans, very traditional, very different than what we’re making now.”
Today the ceramic pieces are designed with brilliant colors and complex patterns, shapes, and designs.
“It got to be more and more exciting experimenting,” explained Lois. “Some of the pieces I make now are very whimsical. With others, the lines are all straight and precise. Some are very, very detailed. Others are spontaneous, like swishes of paint. Whatever evolves, evolves.”
The constant that remains for the Barkers, however, is communication.
“Sometimes couples tend to outgrow each other if they don’t nurture a common interest. And we don’t have that problem,” said Bill. “When we go out to dinner, our conversation often is about the normal things that people talk about, but we also talk about Jean Elton, and we both enjoy it. Lois will say, ‘What do you think about that design over there?’, and it leads to endless conversations between us.”
“It has really helped us a lot during our marriage,” added Lois. “Pottery always brought us together.”
While the biggest Jean Elton market is online, the couple’s pottery can be found in over half-a-dozen galleries throughout the country, including Cortile Gallery in Provincetown, MA, and CBL Fine Art in West Orange, NJ.