Meet the Maker: Mosco Studios
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Lesezeit 4 min
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When you hold a piece from Mosco Studios, it doesn’t just feel handmade—it feels lived in, like it already carries a story. That’s not by accident. Ceramicist Val Chan Eldridge, the artist behind the name, builds each piece with intention: not just as functional objects, but as small, elegant reminders of home, family, and ritual.
Val’s hand-built and hand-painted porcelain works carry a kind of quiet magic. They’re the kind of pieces you reach for each morning, not just because they’re beautiful (they are), but because they make your morning coffee feel like a moment to savor.
“People always ask me ‘why Mosco Studios?’” she says. “The name comes from Moscow Street in Chinatown, where I grew up. Our building was like this big family compound. When I think of home and family and daily rituals, that place is where my mind always goes.”
That feeling—of shared meals, stacked generations, everyday intimacy—is what she brings to every piece she makes. “I love the idea of my work being integrated into people’s lives. Like maybe it becomes part of your breakfast table or your wind-down tea ritual at night. Something ordinary but sacred.”
That core philosophy—art as a part of real life—became even more personal after she became a mom. After years of bouncing between Brooklyn and upstate New York, Val and her husband moved upstate full-time last year, just after the birth of their daughter. The shift wasn’t just geographic; it was a whole-life pivot.
“I quit my job and started doing pottery full-time around the same time I had a baby,” she says. “It’s been a little crazy. But also the dream.” Before Mosco Studios, Val spent over a decade working in fashion—buying, merchandising, e-commerce, marketing. She knew the industry inside and out, but somewhere along the way, she started to burn out.
“I think like a lot of people in their twenties, I just felt the need to make something with my hands. I’d always loved clay—honestly even Play-Doh when I was a kid—but I didn’t think it could be anything serious,” she says. “Then my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, signed us up for a wine-and-wheel class, and I was instantly hooked.”
From there, things grew gradually. Evening classes turned into all-night studio sessions. Weekends were spent selling work at local markets. “At first it was just this creative outlet, something to balance the nine-to-five. But over time, I started to want it to be more.”
The decision to leave her fashion career behind wasn’t made lightly. “That job taught me a lot—especially how hard it is to build a brand. I saw how much it takes. It’s not something you can do without a real passion.”
These days, her work life looks pretty different. Val now runs her studio out of her home, often working during her daughter’s naps or after bedtime. “It’s been an ongoing project,” she says of the space. “When we moved up here, I pieced the studio together from Facebook Marketplace—secondhand kiln, hand-me-down slab roller. It’s all been slow and kind of scrappy in the best way.”
And her creative process has adapted too. “I used to throw everything on the wheel,” she says, “but when you’ve got a baby, being stuck at a wheel for hours doesn’t really fly. So I shifted to hand-building. It’s more flexible—I can stop and start, pick it up when I have time. It fits this phase of life.”
Motherhood has left a visible mark on her work. “I’ve been doing more illustration lately, inspired by the fairy tale books we read together, and even some I kept from my own childhood. It’s like tapping into a different part of my brain.”
Her aesthetic has shifted too, though the influence of her fashion background is still present. “I’m really drawn to fabric patterns—gingham, pinstripes, checks. I still love working with classic colorways like blue and white. There’s something timeless about them.”
That color palette is also a nod to her roots. “My grandmother had this incredible porcelain collection. I grew up surrounded by those pieces—Chinese porcelain, delicate and detailed. I think a lot about that now that I’m working with porcelain myself. It’s such a different material than stoneware—so light and luminous, almost ethereal. You can see light pass through it. It’s just… different.”
If her early work was more utilitarian, her current pieces feel almost like heirlooms. “I want each one to feel like a little talisman. Something you pick up every day, and it makes you feel something. That’s what gets me excited—the idea that someone might drink from one of my cups every morning, and it becomes this quiet, beautiful ritual.”
Nature is another source of ongoing inspiration. “We live in the woods now, so I just go outside and see what’s blooming, what birds are out, and I bring that back to the studio. That’s the rhythm of things now.”
There’s a sense of patience and trust in her process, shaped by motherhood and creative maturity. “I used to rush to get everything perfect, but now I’m okay with things unfolding on their own timeline. That’s true in art, in parenting, and in building a business.”
And while Mosco Studios has grown in reach and recognition, Val’s goal remains pretty simple: make beautiful, meaningful things—by hand, at home, and from the heart. “I just hope when people bring my work into their homes, it brings a little bit of that feeling with it. Of family, of connection, of care. That’s what I’m really trying to share.”
