Jelfs Jude

Jude studied Fine Art, and became a potter when she married John Jelfs. Over the last few years, she has returned to her roots, combining pottery with painting and sculpture in her current work.

Her ceramics range from earthenware or porcelain, to 3-dimensional stoneware pieces.  Currently she is making flat, almost two-dimensional, slab-built pieces, often vessels. The shapes are cut out from sheets of clay, curved, and assembled like dress-making. They are decorated with layers of vitreous (glass forming) slips, burnished, and scraffito lines are drawn through one layer to expose another. They are biscuit fired one or more times, and are usually glazed inside.    The work starts with life-drawing, and each piece is an extension of this.  

When asked where her ideas came from she responded “My inspiration comes from all over the place.  Many things spark it off.  The thought that everyone you see walking down the street is naked under their clothes…..never fails to make me smile.”

Jude’s work is on show at galleries all over the U.K., as well as in her studio at the Cotswold Pottery.

She is also a professional member of the Craft Potters’ Association (CPA)