Award winning Elaine Peto graduated from Exeter College of Art & Design in 1985, where she studied animals via livestock markets and the abattoir, using the media of photography and drawing to record the structure of the carcass. In 1986, she set up a studio and continued the study of agricultural animals. Each animal is individually made by the process of slab building in clay, i.e. rolling out a sheet of clay and forming the body, then gradually adding slab by slab to form the whole animal. The details are then remodelled until the animal is complete. It is then biscuit fired, glazed and refired to stoneware. Elaine wishes to develop other animals such as African animals and to incorporate other materials such as metals with ceramics. In 2017 Elaine won the prestigious SWA (Society of Women Artists) sculpture prize.