With her bleached-blonde hair with blue highlights, Elaine looks more like a punk singer or bohemian artist than someone working in the funeral business.
In fact, each of her headstones, which she displays in a sculpture garden out the front of her property, could be described as a work of art: obelisks decorated with bright mosaic tiles or blood-red roses, stones with splashes of pink and purple for young girls, monuments shaped like a twisted tree branch for several family members, large headstones festooned with sculpted tools and sea creatures and serene-looking angels reaching for the sky.
It can be a difficult, creating for those in the throes of grief and the family conflicts death can bring.
"But for me, it's an honour," Elaine said.
"When you're designing someone's headstone, you put the same kind of love, care and passion into it as you would designing a 21st birthday cake.
"It's exciting - families often walk away feeling content, knowing we're making something which reflected their loved one, their personality and their life.
"Out of something horrible comes something quite gorgeous."
Elaine, a solo mother of four, first started making headstones after her grandfather's death 16 years ago.
"We went up the Rimutaka Hill to sprinkle his ashes - but we didn't have a plaque or a stone, or anything we could go and visit."
A self-taught sculptor, she created her first monument, a concrete obelisk covered in pink and blue mosaic tiles, and The Dedication Stone was born.
Since then, she has branched out -- learning the art of resin moulds and working with fibreglass from a plumber in Carterton, she covers her stones -- usually in a obelisk shape, representing respect -- in kowhai and pohutukawa flowers, kete baskets, butterflies and Maori designs.
More recently, she has begun crafting stones representing the deceased person's profession or hobbies, featuring relief sculptures of shearing clippers, a tool belt and hard-hat, crayfish and paua for a diver and a leather jacket with angel wings for a keen biker.
"I like to put a bit of TLC into each one -- they do take a while, as they need a lot of layers," she said.
"I like my stones to show how a person lived, rather than how they died. It's so sad walking through a cemetery and reading things like 'fell off a horse' on their headstone."
Her headstones also come with storage space inside, so families can put a time capsule inside, filled with old photos, letters written to their loved one, or mementos from their life.
"We had one where the family put the man's rugby jersey inside for the future generations to wear. We had one little girl say she was going to open the time capsule in 50 years and read all the letters to her grandchildren, which was lovely."
Elaine said she has served clients with some heartbreaking stories -- such as making a butterfly-adorned obelisk for a baby, an angel sculpture for a young boy who died tragically and a headstone for 19-year-old Laura Jessop, killed on the Masterton-Castlepoint Rd last year.
"I'm an emotional person, so I have to detach myself from their grief.
"Especially if it's a Mum who's lost a child -- I can't go there.
"I have to look at it like I'm an artist, creating a piece of artwork for a client."
Also difficult can be the financial pressure of running a specialised business, especially as she tries to keep her prices reasonable to cater to low-income families.
" I've been on the bones of my a*** for the past 16 years. But shouldn't people who don't have a lot of money get something beautiful?"
Elaine said she particularly enjoys the bonds she forms with clients and is regularly welcomed on to urupa.
"When families come to me, most of their grieving is done - they just want something special to remember their child or parent.
"It's wonderful to see them all gathered round, wanting to see the headstone and touch it.
"Families have told me they can feel uplifted now the headstone is there."
For more information, go to www.facebook.com/thededicationstone.
