2024 Participating Artists

Kurt Anderson

Instagram: @kurtandersonpottery

Invent a universe. Give it its own rules, it’s own logic. Break the rules, bend the logic. Fill it with beauty and terror. Laughter and joy and misery and sorrow. Don’t leave anything out. The breadth and width of human emotions. It’s all valid. Doodle it. Doodle hard. Doodle your way to victory. Don’t forget who you are. Don’t forget where you came from. Once you were a kid watching the Jetsons all alone on Saturday. You were the dog left at the shelter, the free kitten in a box outside the grocery store. The awkward teenager with the gay dad, terrified people would find out. Now you’re a stone gargoyle perched atop the cathedral, wondering WTF is going on down there. You’ve seen so much. Packed it all away. It’s all filed away. Remember all of it. Use all of it, feel all of it. They invited you in so show them what you’ve seen. Don’t hold anything back.

Christina Bendo

Website: https://christinabendo.com | Instagram: @christinabendopottery

My pots are a study of the contrast between everyday rituals and the constant change that surrounds us. How do Sunday dinner, an afternoon walk, or a clay form repeated, respond to the shifting of external and internal seasons over time? In early spring, my step lightens on the trail. One week I see early blue cohosh and trilliums. Next week the ramps wave their green flags to me. I make pie plates in the studio while thinking of stinging nettle quiche and the coming strawberry harvest. I imagine the potters who made amphorae while thinking of the coming grape harvest thousands of years before me. To everything, there is a season, and these objects hold power to make permanent that which is fleeting. A mug of tea commemorates the migration of a warbler; a serving tray holds the memory of the best asparagus harvest the garden ever produced, shared by candlelight with friends. I seek to make pots that are imbued with these ephemeral moments, telling stories of the cycles of nature and the changing seasons of our lives.

BrennaDee Ceramics

Website: https://brennadee.com | Instagram: @brennadeeceramics

My body of work is wheel-thrown from porcelain clay and high fired in an electric kiln. I mix all of my crystalline glazes in small batches from raw materials and apply them by hand, building up several coats of glaze with a brush. I employ a long firing cycle, utilizing multiple holds at varying temperatures to achieve the two dimensional crystals on my pieces.

My forms are composed of simple, clean lines and I return at multiple points in the making process to refine the profile of each piece. I find that this minimalism provides a refined canvas that allows the glazes to shine, offering a sense of play within a paradigm of precision.

Laura Cooke

Website: https://www.cookeceramics.com/ | Instagram: @lauracookeceramics

I want my pots to be staples in people’s cabinets and on their dinner tables, introducing uniqueness, meaning, and fun into their everyday routines. The lines and patterns on my pots are meant to frame food, embrace coffee, and circle flowers—and enhance people's experience of eating, drinking, and being a person in the world.

I make simple forms and decorate by hand. The lines lead the user's eye around the pots; the patterns encourage them to meditate on the repetition and variation. My decorations are not perfect—they're more sketch-like—celebrating the connection to the natural world, where straight lines don't exist, and making each piece truly one of a kind.

I wheel throw and hand build my pots and fire in an electric kiln. Recently I’ve been firing in a wood kiln as well and decorating with the same patterns. I find it interesting how the wood-kiln atmosphere—the swirling flame and tossed-in salt—creates endless variations I could not predict, and I revel in the wonder of it all.

Corsair Ceramics

Website: https://corsairceramics.com/ | Instagram: @corsairceramics

I am intrigued by the forms and functionally that wheel thrown ceramics can produce. I am lured by the two dimensional representations of the entities I see in my life as they are transposed onto the three dimensional forms. In my newest life chapter in the Carolinas I am drawing inspiration from the local foliage and fauna to create surface decorations that elevate the overall form into everyday functional artwork. The claybody I use is earthenware sourced from the Appalachian mountains. It has a beautiful deep red coloring which forms a strong foundation for the blue stains I use like paint to feed my fascination with the natural etherealness of the creatures I see in my life and mind.

Doug Dotson

Website: https://www.dougdotsonpottery.com | Instagram: @dougdotsonpottery

I make pottery for daily use. Looking to the simplicity and strength of natural forms and patterns for direction, I make pots in a way that shows the marks from my hands, from the tools I use, and from the fire that transforms mud to pottery. I want the hardy, organic feel and appearance of the pottery to be as grounding to the pot’s eventual owner as it is to me when I make it.

Gillan Doty

Website: https://www.gillandoty.com | Instagram: @gillandotypottery

Although not makers themselves, my family put a premium on things we interacted with on a daily basis, like a hand carved wooden bowl on the kitchen table or the salt glazed crock that three generations of Doty’s have made pickles in. My grandfather was a collector and curator who had a particular interest in folk art. There was a simplicity in these works, a delicate balance of precision and an unselfconscious attitude. Growing up around these sometimes strange and unsophisticated works was impactful, forming the connection to the work I would discover later on my own.

There is a vitality in the physical forms created by the hands of our predecessors. However, my intention is not to mimic, rather an attempt at creating something new that has an understanding of where it came from. Along with a deep reverence for historical works, I am drawn to primitivism, vernacular architecture, and the natural landscape we all exist in. Those influences are rooted in a similar place, simplicity, practicality, and functionality. I am constantly balancing those ideals with the persistent challenge of problem solving with this transformative but sometimes humbling material. When I am in the studio, I aim to create something new that is accessible while still possessing deeper connections to the world around us and the people who inhabit it.

Marian Draper

Website: https://www.mariandraper.com | Instagram: @mariandraperceramics

I make elegantly crafted utilitarian vessels adorned with lush, floral motifs. Influenced by rich botanicals, nature, and the Arts and Crafts movement, I create functional works that combine my deep admiration for form and process with a love for ornate, colorful surfaces. With slip and underglaze, I apply my motifs to generous forms, resulting in a textured, antiquated surface, reminiscent of abundant textiles and wallpaper.

An aged surface married with crisp forms creates a unique dialogue between vessel and surface that captivates me. Through form I explore proportion, volume, and scale, thereby creating elevated and regal objects. I aim to make works that stand on their own, having a formal vernacular while still leaving room for intentional and playful moments. My surfaces interact gracefully with my forms. Flowing over curves and edges, my motifs soften polished exteriors. With line and color, I am able to highlight both surface and form, resulting in a cohesive work that combines the things to which I am drawn.

Assembling each piece has its own flowing tempo, resulting in a collection of techniques used to fashion refined, functional forms that encourage use. By throwing, blending, shaping, and trimming, I use the potter’s wheel to build wares that resemble cherished objects similar to heirlooms passed down from generation to generation. I strive to create works embedded with bits of history and nature, transporting users to an era where material and process were cherished and celebrated.

David Fernandez

I have developed a recognizable expression of what it means to me to be a potter. My work has been consistent throughout the many many years of creating and defining the forms, glazes, colors, and texture of my pieces. I developed my stoneware clay formula in 1972. My cone 11 reduction glazes are a result of constant testing and experimenting. I designed and built my unique updraft fiber kiln over 45 years ago. Other potters are surprised when I tell them I fire to cone 11 in five hours and fifteen minutes from cold to temperature and then unload the kiln eight hours later without using gloves. My journey as a potter has brought me to Seagrove where I sell my work in our gallery Seagrove Stoneware. Oh, and I am the current Mayor of Seagrove.

Susan Filley

Website: https://www.susanfilley.com/ | Instagram: @susanfilley

I work with porcelain clay, a beautiful white clay. When fired, it becomes a luscious material with qualities like marble that feel very special. It is translucent when thin, extremely durable when in use, and as the Chinese described it - “as pure as jade and rings like a bell.”

I have been making pots for over 40 years. It was the functionality of the craft that first enchanted me. But now, for much of my work, I am making pots that may never be used. I value a favorite pot that lives on a shelf as much as one that might get to a dinner table. I am striving to simply make beautiful pots in all that I do.

I make many forms, using both the wheel and hand building. I love to make cups that perfectly fit the hand and lip, and traditional vessels that are simple in form, rich in history, and offer me the best of glazing opportunities. I also make more complicated sculptural forms.

In my pots and my development of form, there is a distinctive elegance.
I use many tools for carving and refining that allow me to make strong forms and graceful edges. I want a sense of gestural motion in my ‘dancing‘ teapots and strong fluid lines in the landscape forms.

I also have a passion for glazes. They enhance the movement of my work with luminous flowing crystal surfaces and embellish the pots with rich glaze depth and color. Layering of glazes promotes the microcrystalline effects. I have formulated copper red variations with delicate white crystals for cups and vessels, brilliant celadon on white glazes (the Dancing Teapot) and other fascinating microcrystalline effects that are not represented in the limited images.

After so many years exploring my fascination with porcelain, I am still always striving to make that next new and better pot.

Emily Flores

Website: https://www.emilyfloresceramics.com | Instagram: @emilyfloresceramics

Texture, pattern, and bold colors intersect in my functional ceramic work. In a world that pushes us to move faster, it is my hope that my pieces encourage the user to slow down, notice the details, and allow the senses to be engaged. Using materials with varying surface characteristics such as slip, underglaze, and glaze with original die-cut stencils made from hand-drawn designs, I am able to create surface patterns that urge us to touch and interact with the piece in a way that invites the mind and body to explore.

Daniel Garver

Website: https://www.danielgarver.com | Instagram: @dang_ceramics

Daniel Garver creates ceramic work that is focused on minimal and reductive aesthetics. In his design forward process, he starts with orthographic drawings, constructs plaster molds, and eventually slipcasts porcelain in these molds. The castings result in variety of forms ranging from functional pots for serving food, to sculptural vessels to embellish your home.

Debra Aase-Farnum

Website: https://shopgoldenandgrey.com/ | Instagram: @golden_and_grey

Debra Aase-Farnum founded Golden and Grey: Tales of the High Seas and Beyond nearly a decade ago. Her hand-painted, porcelain-ware is formed on the pottery wheel. Each piece tells a story inspired by the Nordic Sea. Her father grew up in Norway and her family was recently granted the opportunity to visit thanks to the Renewal Fellowship granted to her in 2022-2023 by ASC. Her grey illustrations are brought to life with fine brush strokes and a watercolor technique in underglaze. The interior of her work is washed in "ocean" glaze and the exterior is dipped in clear glaze to highlight the visual narrative. Her work is often fired a third time producing her favorite kiln opening, the brilliance of gold luster . The gold and grey come together to create her namesake.

Mike Hamlin

Website: https://www.hamlinceramics.com | Instagram: @mikepots

I live in the mountain forests of the Upper Hickory Nut Gorge, in Gerton, NC. The mosses, fungi, lichen, and orchids growing around me inspire my clay vessels and the glaze surfaces.

All pieces are handbuilt or wheel thrown on the potter’s wheel, using a high iron bearing clay that accentuates my formulated glaze surface and color. I fire to 1195 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, the clay body vitrifies, and the vessel becomes watertight.

Every piece made contributes peace and serenity to an interior environment. The surfaces entice the fingers to touch and interact with the object.

Phil Haralam

Website: https://philharalam.com | Instagram: @philharalam

My studio practice is focused on both functional pottery vessels and sculpture, but all my work is rooted in craft traditions and material exploration. My wheel-thrown pottery is influenced by American studio pottery and by the formal qualities of Song Dynasty porcelain. When done well, I believe that functional objects can capture our attention, heighten our awareness, and perform their function with harmonious success.

Deborah Harris

Website: https://deborahharrispottery.com

Handcrafted pottery serves an intimate connection between user and artist. Objects handled during everyday routines become familiar and comfortable. My hope is that every piece I create will be utilized and enjoyed.

The majority of my work is wheel thrown porcelain. The pots are decorated by brushing black slip onto the leather hard clay and then carved with a variety of tools. This sgraffito technique adds subtle texture exposing the raw white porcelain. The celadon glaze used on many of these pieces gets the soft blue/green color from trace amounts of iron in the formula. After firing, porcelain becomes translucent to light and rings when gently tapped. These unique properties drew me to work almost exclusively with this claybody.

Early use of porcelain dates back to the 12th century Song Dynasty. The beauty of the black and white ware along with the celadon glazes from the Cizhou kilns of this time period have been a strong influence.The designs express the natural and mythical world with insects, plants and dragons. This is such a rich source of inspiration and motivation. The use of Ginkgo leaves also draws on historic references. The Ginkgo tree is a symbol of strength, longevity and considered a living fossil as one of the oldest tree forms. In addition to their endurance over millennium, Ginkgos have survived the devastating atomic bombings of WW II. This has me considering, where will the shards of my pots be in 1,000 years? I wonder with every tea bowl I throw.

Hartsoe Pottery

Website: https://hartsoepottery.com | Instagram: @hartsoepottery

I believe that successful art has a firm foundation in the work that came before it. It operates by recognizing and pursuing good form from our past and present traditions. The common language of form is dictated by themes of functionality and of a common, human scale. I look not only to the forms themselves but also to the traditional methods used to make them. I have pursued my education through the process of apprenticeship and working closely with other master potters, beginning in Japan and continuing through England and here in the US. This slow education allowed for an organic training and development of the eye for form and instructed the hand in how to respond to the material.
As a functional potter I am unapologetically deeply reverent of tradition. However, I demand that my work resist a static complacency in merely the replication of the past. The challenge of my studio practice is to escape the dangers of the derivative and to allow the free experimentation with preexisting fundamentals and to synthesize them with a fresh, contemporary approach and consideration. My design is to encourage something new from the past and in so doing, to create something vital and lasting. It is my hope that perhaps it will succeed in demonstrating a kind of new translation of the better themes of our functional forms.

Hog Hill Pottery

Website: http://hoghillpottery.com | Instagram: hoghillpottery

John and Scottie at Hog Hill Pottery have worked together for 30 years, so their collaboration is intensive and includes glaze and construction techniques of wheel throwing, hand decoration, carving, and glaze and under glaze painting , including lustrous metallics.

Trista Hudzik

Website: https://tristahudzikpottery.com | Instagram: @tristahudzikpottery

Contemporary pottery with an Old World feel.

My passion for making pottery is largely rooted in my longing for a return to simpler times, to days gone by, when life wasn’t so complicated. I try to live my life with great intention. Enjoying and appreciating every moment, surrounding myself with love, magic and beauty as much as I possibly can! Living simply, loving the land, loving my community, and working with my hands, creating beautiful vessels for everyday life. This is what makes me whole. This living represents the cycle of life and celebrations that makes life meaningful, magical!
I dig in my garden. I plant seeds. These seeds, I nurture into food. I cultivate this food into nutritious meals, which I share with my loved ones and my community. From this precious earth, I build the vessels in which to serve to my loved ones as we celebrate the richness of our lives, love, grief and lifes many blessings.
This cycle of creating, nurturing and celebrating is customary across time and civilization. Slowly these customs are disappearing. These rituals are an important aspect of life that for me making pottery completes. Living as a potter is an effort to retain these customs and values.

Hype Queen Studios

Website: https://Hypequeenstudios.com | Instagram: @hypequeenstudios

I see my work more as serial, than individual pieces; A thematic assemblage, even though many of the pieces might only be together through their brief journey through the kiln, they represent a collective whole.
Pop art has always fascinated me, the use of ordinary commercial objects/images transformed through a variety of artistic media provides a rich source of subject matter. Through juxtaposing my works, my intent is to create an “Ostentatious Party.” Exploring my own feminist ideals and tolerances.
I have found that ceramics is an ideal material/medium. It allows me a wide range of applications for creating and fabricating my art. The choices of color/glazes, mold forms and surface textures with underglazes, grog, and lusters allows for limitless possibilities and experimentation.

Johnston & Gentithes Studios

Website: https://www.johnstonandgentithes.com | Instagram: @johnstongentithesstudios

Fred's interest lies in the abstraction of nature. He questions how mark making and decoration accentuates form while at the same time contemplating what forms are best suited for a particular zoomorphic motif. He relies on intuition, spontaneity and what is visceral as a mode of creating. Carol's quixotic sculptures can be seen in vivid color. Abstracting from mythology, literature and life’s observations, the subject matter ranges anywhere from pictorial witticisms to political commentaries. Fred and Carol collaborate through their keen sense of the pottery vernacular and the historical canon of art and culture. Their vessel collaborations are an amalgamation of surrealistic and atmospheric surfaces which come from the wood firing process and the reconfiguration & distortion of commercial ceramic decals. Prime example of their collaboration Winter Renderings vase (photo#6) : Fred made and fired the vase, then Carol created the visual narrative working off the undulation of the glazed surface.

Bill Jones

Website: https://www.billjonespottery.com | Instagram: @billjonespottery

I grew up in an old stone house and from an early age found beauty in simple articulations of material. A loosely laid stone wall, a sketch done with a finger in damp sand, the haphazard stability of a quickly erected structure. As a potter, I work with simple materials and methods in a constant attempt to channel this same beauty. I think of my pots as drawings - each piece a passing attempt to realize a form in my head. My memory of these forms is a living thing and as it changes and distorts, so does my work. The pots are articulated by the flowing lines, jagged marks and gentle indentations left by my hands. The work is never done and beauty is found in the process.

Liz Kelly Pottery

Website: https://lizkellypottery.com/ | Instagram: @liz.kelly.pottery

Liz makes modern maximalist ceramics focused on food, beverage and home. Wares are layered with soft colors and vibrant vintage ceramic decals. The resulting visual contrasts are both familiar and fresh, upending expectations of the medium. Her work is primarily wheel-thrown with some coiled and handbuilt forms.

Eric Knoche Studio, Ltd

Website: https://www.ericknoche.com/ | Instagram: @ericknochestudio

I make sculptural pottery and abstract sculpture using a variety of hand building techniques including coiling, pinching and working with slabs. I use local materials as much as possible and I typically fire my work with wood.

Over the last twenty years I have focused on firing my work in Japanese-style wood kilns. In particular, I have fired a lot of my work in a style adopted from Bizen, Japan, where the work is covered in charcoal at peak temperature. The patina on the finished pieces is the result of the dynamic interaction between the materials (clay, slip, glaze), the forms, the placement and arrangement in the kiln, and the firing. Recently I have become more interested in glazes.

I make a number of different series of work from small vases to human size columns. My work is influenced by machine parts, human anatomy (especially bones), written language, plants, dance moves, clouds.

Becky Lloyd

Website: https://www.lloydpottery.com | Instagram: @beckylloydyogamama

My work uses a centuries old technique called sgraffito to create very intricate patterns and designs. Each piece of hand thrown porcelain is coated with a black terra sigillata slip. I then use a very sharp knife to cut into the slip to expose the white porcelain underneath. This technique allows me to indulge in my passion for design and challenge my skills at the same time.

Over the last several years my work has become more personal. A refuge. An expression of beauty, love and grief all at the same time. I have always had a keen interest in ancient civilizations and the incredible art they produced. Those ancient worlds hold endless inspiration for me and always will. But I am now looking inside myself. Searching. Searching for what I have lost. In late April of 2014, Steve my husband, partner in clay and life passed away unexpectedly of an undiagnosed heart condition. This man that I spent over 26 years of my life with was everything to me. He was always my biggest fan but I now know he was also my biggest inspiration. A true artist. An amazing potter. Never have I worked in the studio without him by my side. The pots we made together were an expression of the love we had for each other and our work. I cannot help but reflect on what was. It has shaped my life to what it is. Moving forward is inevitable, but in looking back and remembering I am carrying along memories and ideas of all that we had together. Now I must look inside and find the courage and grace to continue what Steve and I started together so long ago. Steve will always be in every piece I make and every piece I decorate. How could it be any other way?

Andrew Massey

Website: https://www.andrewmasseyceramics.com | Instagram: @aclaymassey

Like many other artists, my path to ceramics was not linear. Drawing from my interest in machinery, architecture, and design, I started my college career studying mechanical engineering but quickly shifted my perspective to art as soon as I started engaging with clay. The material drew me in. I was compelled by its tactile nature: how it could be shaped on the wheel, sculpted, and then changed back to stone through the help of fire. As in a potters right of passage, the teapot form captivated me and I began throwing, extruding, cutting and assembling sculptural teapots. Drawing from my love of the mechanical word I incorporated this aesthetic of industrial components into my work and it has melded with my process of assemblage and interest in detailed carving. My current body of work has blossomed from the teapot form into more functional and sculptural directions. I find the balance between functionality and sculpture alluring. I stretch scale, function, and perceived function with my work. I play with both traditional forms, with detailed layered surfaces, and whimsical sculptural pieces where I incorporate many different assemblage techniques. I do not try to fully fool the eye with my surfaces and shapes but rather draw inspiration from the mechanical world while retaining what I love about the quality of clay.

Jennifer Mecca

Website: http://www.jenmeccapottery.com/ | Instagram: @jenmecca

I am a utilitarian potter who lives and works in Gaston County. I create pots that are visually pleasing and unique in character, but also useful in everyday life. My pieces are thrown on the potter's wheel and then altered when wet. I use high-fire porcelain and embellish my pieces with different surface techniques and glazes. My process consists of drawing into the clay and inlaying the stain, then whipping it away which is called intaglio. I also make my own stamps and sprig molds that I add to these drawings. My pieces are used in people's homes around the United States and I enjoy selling my work at galleries, craft shows, and on Etsy. I enjoy making serving pieces and tableware that bring delight to the daily activity of eating, setting a table, and enjoying a meal. While growing up, I spent many weekends observing and participating in the traditions and rituals of my paternal Italian-American extended family. Among the most prevalent of these traditions were the preparation and presentation of elaborate meals. The pots I create reflect my enjoyment of throwing, embellishing, creating, and using. I enjoy creating each piece with its own unique character and personality, whether I change a spout, foot, rim, glaze color, or decorative element. All of my pieces are wheel-thrown and altered in some way. Because of the bright colors I get from the glazes I use, I enjoy working with porcelain. The forms I make are usually organic in form, which stems from my love of the material I use, and my personal preference for a fluid line. My inspirations for surfaces come from patterns in fabric, wrapping paper, modern floral designs, and historic dishware pottery. I currently work from my home studio in Gastonia, North Carolina where I live with my husband Joey, our son Quaid, and twin daughters Aydan and McKenna. I teach college students part-time and am a member of a ceramic group that I founded called Thrown Together.

Michelle Miolla

Website: https://michellemiolla.com | Instagram: @miolla_ceramics

I came to clay through function. The connection that my work has between myself and the user is an important bond that I keep in mind with every piece that I make. All of my pottery is hand built using the coiling and pinching methods. This slow and calm process keeps me more connected to each pot. I get a lot of my inspiration from patterns and textures, bugs and nature as well as simple still moments in every day life. Clay continues to teach me a lot about patience and acceptance and helps me to keep a sense of exploration in my day to day.

Gillian Parke

Website: https://gillianparke.com | Instagram: @gillian_parke

Fine bone china and porcelain are frequently associated with treasured heirlooms that are passed down between generations. My association with porcelain stems from early childhood summer trips to visit my grandmother in Northern Ireland, where she would take me to local china shops to buy small porcelain souvenirs. As I pursued my ceramic education, and started working with porcelain, these memories came to the forefront to influence both my techniques and directions.

My current work combines elements of manufactured porcelain and Japanese pottery, particularly Shigaraki and Imari ware. Fine porcelain is highly processed and purified, mass-produced, and fired in a controlled manner using saggars, effectively removing any evidence of an individual artist. In contrast, Shigaraki ware is typically handmade stoneware with feldspar inclusions fired in an anagama kiln, the only decoration coming from the randomness of wood ash. Imari is highly decorated porcelain that was for the export market. My surface designs focus on the Imari ware patterns and motifs used to meet aesthetic tastes outside Japan.

Parmentier Pottery

Website: https://www.parmentierpottery.com | Instagram: @parmentierpottery

We have been working together in clay for over 45 years. Each piece moves back and forth between the two us to complete all of the intricate steps involved in our work. As nationally recognized potters, we have participated in nearly every major art fair in the county. We are members of the Southern Highland Craft Guild, Piedmont Craftsmen and Carolina Designer Craftsmen. Our Mars Hill studio is open by appointment where custom orders are always welcome. For the past 10 years we have been members of Ariel Gallery, located in downtown Asheville, one of the most prominent craft co-operative galleries in the country.

Ron Philbeck

Website: https://www.ronphilbeckpottery.com | Instagram: @ronphilbeck

My work explores the dynamics between soda firing, slips, and animal imagery on stoneware pots. I throw with soft clay on a slow wheel and try to impart energy and gesture into each work. It is important for me that the pots be beautiful and serve their purpose. That applies to pots that are functional and used on an everyday basis and to pots that may play a more decorative or ritualistic role in the home.

Teresa Pietsch

Website: https://teresapietsch.com | Instagram: @tapietsch

My work is all about color and subtle texture and the red earthenware as the lifeblood underneath. I decorate each piece using a mono-print slip transfer method. I start by painting colored slip onto newsprint and then placing the newsprint onto leather hard clay and rubbing it until the image has been transferred onto the clay. This creates a weathered texture and adds an aspect of imperfection. I then embellish the image with slip dots or carved lines for another layer of texture and detail. Most of my work is fired in a gas soda kiln. I spray a solution of soda ash into the kiln towards the end of the firing and this glazes the pots. The soda glaze and a light reduction, gives me a variation to the surface that I find appealing. My hope is that my work brings a smile and joy to the person using the piece

John Ransmeier Studio

Website: https://www.johnransmeier.com/

Making pots, for me has always been about evolution. The functional work seems to get a little better as the years go by and the sculptural pieces while challenging, are improving as well. Glazes, of course, are always a challenge but I enjoy seeing them mingle on the pots and am determined to always try new combinations of overlap and blending. I hope to always stay in touch with the amazing possibilities of this material and feel lucky to have had a lifetime to explore a small part of them.

Barry Rhodes

Website: https://www.rhodespottery.com | Instagram: @barryrhodespottery

In my work, I aspire to span the divide between sculpture and functionality. I hand build flower vases, in various configurations, though I do occasionally return to my throwing roots. The surfaces, though simpler now then in the past, still retain some of lines, patterns and textures that were so prominent in my prior work. My surfaces now rely more on texture, raw clay, color and the effects of slow cooling my kin to enhance the formation of micro-crystals in my glaze.

My pieces are characterized as mid-range stoneware, fired to cone 6 and slowly cooled to enhance the glaze surfaces. However, I am now beginning to experiment with wood firing using native NC clays. Designs are layers of slips and underglazes applied by brush, bottle or ceramic pencil.

David Roswell

Website: http://www.davidroswellstudios.com/ | Instagram: @davidroswell

Process drives my creative journey. I love the feeling of a form rising from a ball of clay, the raging uncertainty in the atmospheric kiln, and the joy of pulling out a successful piece, still cooling, and learning its story. My work brings that sense of curiosity, excitement, and pleasure to the user—getting it right into their hands. I make pots for everyday use, so that people take pause and care for the things and people around them. I use locally-dug wild clay, connecting me with millennia of potters making work to serve their communities and inspire their imaginations. I draw inspiration from the sun-glinted ripples in water, the patterns and disorder of clouds, and the surfaces of weatherworn, lichen covered rocks and logs in the forest.

Michael Rutkowsky

Website: https://rutkowskypottery.com | Instagram: @pbpotter

I seek a spontaneous approach to pottery making akin to the quickness of the throwing process itself. My surfaces are slip trailed in repetitive abstract patterns with quick gestural strokes, each motion being the same but producing individual pattern; some are on the clay others on colored slips either under the glaze or on the clay or slip surface. These are functional pots meant to be used to enhance our daily rituals.

Ruth Fischer Rutkowsky

Website: https://www.rutkowskypottery.com | Instagram: @ruth_f_r_pottery

My pottery features detailed hand-etched slip-trailed designs which depart from the purely abstract surface design. Instead, I use sky and water themes primarily and invite the viewer to contemplate the symbolism of 'working well together' and to follow a spiritual calling.

Sabha

Website: https://ahmadsabhaobjects.weebly.com/ | Instagram: @sabhaceramics

The material is my vocabulary, and the form is my vehicle to deliver my emotions. My work is a self-portrait, I am in the work, and the work is in me.

My work is both functional and sculptural, useful, and beautiful. I conceive of it as beautiful because it is useful, and useful because it is beautiful. I believe that ceramics is art made an active part of life. From this perspective there is no essential difference between ceramic art and functional pottery. As a ceramicist I use earth in the form of clay, water to shape the clay, fire to turn the
clay into stone and so contain air inside of the new form that is created. The new form is a result of a confluence of the basic
elements of nature with the hands, mind, and heart of the maker.

I do not conceive of my work as an act of self-expression but rather as an act of world expression. Making, firing, touching, and beholding
connects me to the world and so forms a bridge between inside and outside. Similarly, the work itself creates a new relationship between inside and outside. The world is re-presented and as a result it is re-discoverable in direct connection to us.

Greg Scott

Website: https://gsclayart.com | Instagram: @claylifecoach

Ceramist, painter, sculptor and teacher, my goal is to create expressionist works that unite Fine and Decorative arts with works in painting and ceramics. Continually manipulating form and surface ,I allude to historical influence while creating works of unusual depth. Foot, naval and surface characterize my decidedly anthropomorphic vessels. My Casual approach to drawing, form and color are a solid strength of the Painterly vessel I create.

Joey Sheehan

Website: www.meltingmountainpottery.com | Instagram: @joeymakespots

I began my explorations in clay over 20 years ago and was immediately captivated by the material and the wheel. The realization that I could create something beautiful and useful at the same time was profoundly invigorating. As I began to grasp the concepts of making and form, my interest fell more into surface and color. I use textural porcelain slips and layered glazes to create bright, flowing, and volatile surfaces. As I have grown and matured in life, my work has followed. I am still fascinated by glaze and surface, but with a higher understanding of form and flow. I am deeply influenced by classical shapes and why and how they were made. I attempt to embrace these studied forms but with a contemporary twist. In my current method of firing in a large two chamber wood kiln as well as a newly built gas “car” kiln, I am exploring the interaction between form and fire; building a relationship in each piece between function, the surface of the pot, and the story of the firing process. I have also been pushing my own limits of making and firing with large scale figurative and abstract sculpture. These pieces present challenges in making, moving, and firing; ensuring that I am constantly studying and learning. Each piece is made and placed conscientiously in the kiln with expectation and openness. A desire for success, and a pupil’s acceptance of result.

Jenny Lou Sherburne Pottery

Website: https://www.jennylousherburnepottery.com | Instagram: @jennyloupottery

I like to remind myself that life is indeed a gift. Making pots helps me to both remember and celebrate this belief. The process of exploring and reinventing within the inherent parameters of functional pottery inspires me to explore and question my assumptions within the inherent parameters of daily living as well. My influences range from the Land of Oz to the Isle of Crete, from Antonio Gaudi to Dr. Seuss. I use lavish textures and embellishments to underscore and make obvious the time and devotion I put into each piece. The organic forms both lumpy and lyrical, the sometimes ungainly proportions or the quirky feet are really all about the fun I have in the process of making. My use of color is simply an overt reference to joy. I want what I make to reflect my ideal, that our lives can be imbued with a sense of energy and joy, which can be communicated and shared. That hope is what helps me move forward.

Andy Smith

Clay is addicting and learning something different about it makes my work exciting and always new.I have always worked with raku. The varieties of the raku make my work distinctive.

Gertrude Graham Smith

Website: https://www.gertrudegrahamsmith.com | Instagram: @gertrudegrahamsmith

I love and celebrate the movement and soft responsive feel of porcelain clay thrown on a potters wheel in my pieces. Strong profile/form and tactile interest reflecting the clay's reaction to touch are vital. Altering the forms and surfaces of freshly thrown pieces immediately on the wheel can evoke a sense of lively spontaneity. All my work, except large scale pieces, is single-fired, (i.e. glazed when leather-hard), in a soda kiln where flames decorate anticipated edges and glazes particularly responsive to firing in soda are utilized. If I have to analyze the work, it celebrates a childhood enthralled with animated cartoons, cups and saucers whirling in dance combined with awe at the formal beauty of my grandmother's holiday table settings. My contemporary interpretation is in functional and whimsical porcelain. Larger pieces are built up over weeks by throwing soft coils off of the leather hard sections below. Smaller objects are fully functional, sturdy for eating, washing up, and stack easily, patterns and colors creating a kind of interactive sculpture. Candelabra reflect a current desire and passion to bring more light into the world.

Be Rose

Website: https://claybybe.com | Instagram: @clay.by.be/

I think of my work as “serious play”.
Within this opposing concept, I navigate the space between joy and the intentionality of craft. My motifs are whimsical, simple, sweet flowers dotting a surface of vines, grids or checkered patterns. Simultaneously, each whimsical flower is deliberately colored using a catalog of mason stains at specific percentages, each square mapped out with test tiles of underglaze. I dance between scientist and artist, curiously testing and noting what is working, which experiment to scrap and which to embellish on.
The pieces are also playful in their form. They are generous, curvy pots occasionally holding themselves up on tiny feet, creating a sense of silliness. My shapes are soft, edges subdued. Transcending visual softness, it is also important to me that the work physically is tactile and comfortable to hold. I throw, shape and sand with the objection of smoothness.
Ultimately my goal as an artist is to create work that brings a sense of joy and is meticulously crafted.

Grace Stott

Website: https://www.gracestott.com | Instagram: @gracestottt

I am a sculptor working primarily in ceramics and mixed-media installations. I strive to elevate the ordinary and infuse it with surreal playfulness through bright colors and pop imagery atop earthy wares to weave together a dream world of femme empowerment, cherubic cuteness, and decadence, where cats reign supreme. Driven by my experiences and my multicultural identity, I’m inspired by the complexities of motherhood, the nurturing practice of self-care, and the nostalgia of home. I'm forever searching for the beauty and magic in the ordinary moments that shape our lives to create work that is both fantastical and intimately relatable inviting you to discover the extraordinary in the everyday.

David Stuempfle

Website: https://www.stuempflepottery.com | Instagram: @davidstuempflepottery

In addition to the many technical problems all potters face, I also consider other questions: Can my work be a part of my surrounding environment while also relating to pottery in other parts of our shrinking world? Is it possible to make traditional pottery based on innovation and integrity instead of reproduction and romance? Can I learn to make things that reflect my other interests in nature, music, travel, and books? Balancing these concerns, I’ve tried to make pottery that is unique to myself and communicates with others. While materials and process are equally important, my natural emphasis has been form. I’ve tried to use my past experiences as a repetition potter constructively by making individual pieces in related series. I keep an open mind to accommodate changing ideas. Some days I am searching for a new gesture, other times I am trying to distill a shape down to what is absolutely necessary. Although good ideas, materials, and techniques are essential, for me, judgment is left for the finished work alone. Studying history has taught me an appreciation of the great diversity of ceramics, and has also given me an awareness of our own short time to contribute. This has led me to focus on a limited range of work with the intention of exploring it in depth. My most recent work includes hand built sculptural forms, smaller functional pots, as well as contemporary and traditional larger pieces.

Wei Sun

Website: https://weisunpottery.com | Instagram: @weisunpottery

I am a studio potter residing in Raleigh. My goal is to bring one-of-a-kind artisan pottery into people's daily life. My work is inspired by the Asian ceramics culture of my native region and the NC pottery tradition of my adopted home. I try to achieve a balance between artistry and functionality.

Most of my work are wheel thrown with optional alteration. I use various decoration techniques such as carving, slip and brushworks. I fire my work in cone 6 electric or cone 10 gas reduction. My functional work use food safe glazes, and are intended for everyday uses.

Sarah Tolbert & Preston Tolbert

Website: https://tolbertceramics.com | Instagram: @preston.tolbert

The union of nature and utility drives me to make. I am most interested in forming a naturalistic, varied surface that petrifies a moment in time in the kiln. I make smooth, uniform, simplistic cylinders on the potters wheel, then dramatically carve them to reflect the texture of water/grass/clouds. I fire my porcelain in a soda kiln to further emphasize the carving. Introducing wood releases carbon that fuses and is trapped in the glaze in grey to black swaths. Bright yellow, orange, and pink show in more hidden places. I want to create a surface that is luscious and dramatic, but indistinct enough to leave room for imagination.

Preston Tolbert
I am regularly amazed by the power of artifacts. Objects can translate intent, skill, function, place, and time, causing us to reflect upon the maker and past users. By incorporating incised patterns in my work, I am creating a connection to the past. For source material I look to historical basketry, tilework, carpentry, and of course pottery. With my vessels, the patterns are incomplete and fade as they weave around the forms. This reflects the nature of objects that have been used to the point of collapse. We live in a society driven by partial consumption and indiscriminant disposal. When something exhibits wear, we get a new one. But I believe that wear and the patina of age generally improves aesthetics. A good repair can be a point of interest and suggest a narrative. I am using the language of basketry carved into the surface of clay to express human conditions including frailty, durability, and repair. These objects are signifiers of history, utility, and kinship.

Turning Earth Studios

Website: https://www.turningearthstudios.com | Instagram: @turningearthstudios

My rural Blue Ridge Mountain upbringing shaped how I interact with the world. I grew up closely observing natural patterns and cycles of transformation. I appreciate the intricacies of organic growth and structures of decay. My studio practice requires patience, attention to detail, and results in each piece exhibiting unique qualities.

Wood firing has informed my aesthetic. I wheel throw and alter soft clay forms with curves that are sensual and inviting, balancing full form with carved skeletal voids. Voluptuous forms accentuate colorful flashing from accumulation of wood ash and flame path through the kiln. Enduring the prolonged volatile kiln atmosphere, each piece emerges exhibiting nuanced surfaces and dramatic geologic distortions.

I ask a lot of my material, seeking out avenues of the unexpected and exploring physical thresholds between control and collapse. Merging refined skill with contingent systems affords compelling opportunities for continual transformation and growth.

The Triangle Studio

Websites: https://www.katejohnstonpottery.com and https://thetrianglestudio.com | Instagram: @kayetwaltman and @the_triangle_studio

Working with the traditional tools of a potter’s wheel and wood-burning kiln, I transform local clays into objects of beauty and desire. I work in cadence with tradition to bring obsolete ceramic objects into the modern age as employable pots.
Repurposed historical forms gain a new appointment in the home and commonplace vessels become accompanists to the rituals of food and storage.
I exalt in form and revel in function but the surface is my true love. My pots begin as raw local earth that are diligently processed into clay, slips, and glazes. This severe limitation of materials gives structure and freedom to my making, allowing me to fully explore the subtlety and character of each variant as I compose a body of work. 
I begin the surfaces by carving an underlying armature of lines that stick to the bones of my forms, providing an arbor on which to cultivate patterns. Precise incising illustrates the surrounding flora, depicting the contrivance of wild plants into domestic gardens. Through extensive drawing I hone a plant to its essential silhouettes, using the resulting pieces to structure my forms with symmetrical balance. Rhythmic ordering overtakes the capriciousness of nature just as the form of a domestic pot masters the feral clay.
The pots, damp and raw, are committed to a kiln. The earth joins with the fire’s erratic atmosphere regaining a bit of its wildness, and fusing with the patterns. 

Evelyn Ward

Website: https://www.evelynwardpottery.com | Instagram: @evelynwardpottery

My pots are simple in form and surface design with architectural references. I try to make balanced pots that would be nice to have in the home for use or just be around. I really enjoy making pots and hope that they bring a little light to people’s lives. I’m currently working with a dark brown stoneware clay because I love the rich color of the clay body and wanted to have some areas of bare clay showing through on the surfaces of the pots. I’m using a printing technique called mono-print transferring to decorate the surfaces. I paint slip onto cut pieces of paper and then transfer them onto the pot making a design. I love the imperfections that this process leaves on the surface of the pot. And the clean lines I can get from the process. I started out as a printmaker and have always gravitated to the qualities of hand printed images.

Melissa Weiss

Website: https://www.melissaweisspottery.com | Instagram: @melissaweisspottery

I spent all my summers in Queens, NY. My mother's whole family lived in one row house. My mother's middle sister and her husband and my three cousins lived in the basement apartment. My grandparents and my mother's youngest sister and my other cousin lived in the middle floor and my grandmother's sister lived on the top floor. My brother and I lived in this house for three months every year our entire childhood. My summers in this house were rich with family and tradition and that is what inspires me to make beautiful, useful objects for everyday life. My memories are the most colorful and profound of those times. My family is Sicilian. My grandmother made a traditional Italian feast every Sunday for the whole family who would travel from Brooklyn and New Jersey bearing cardboard boxes tied in twine full of Italian cookies, loaves of semolina bread, Italian ices, and bottles of seltzer water. My grandmother would be in the kitchen before sunrise cooking a giant pot of spaghetti sauce, meatballs, veal cutlets and eggplant. My grandfather would sit in a vinyl chair in the tiny kitchen grating pecorino by hand, for what seemed like hours, next to the window where the clothes hung out on the line in the sticky heat of a NYC summer. The house was filled with smells, sounds and colors I can recall to this day for the life they possessed. I make pots to belong in these memories. Dishes to celebrate family and tradition. Utilitarian objects rustic, useful, simple and beautiful to be granted a place at my grandmother's table for Sunday dinner.

Julie Wiggins Pottery

Website: https://juliewigginspottery.com | Instagram: @juliewigginspottery

Julie Wiggins Pottery offers mindfully handmade porcelain pottery. Crafted using a combination of wheel thrown and hand built techniques. Building on her formal academic training, experience as a non-profit ceramics studio manager and teacher. Julie spent several years refining her current line of functional pots. Her signature style is unique with the use of blue and whites, drawings of floral and geometric designs combined with utilitarian pots for the home. Each piece is hand drawn with decorations reflecting her love of nature, food, connections with others, and captured memories. Woman owned, handmade from start to finish in her Bakersville, NC studio where she lives near Penland School of Crafts with her pup, Leon Bridges.

Curry Wilkinson Pottery

Website: www.currywilkinsonpottery.com | Instagram: @currywilkinsonpottery

Growing up in North Carolina has afforded me roots like no other place could: I am part of a historic, unique, and vibrant community of potters. Having a solid root system in the South allows me to engage with people and their traditions to attract inspiration and shape my unique voice and design into Curry Wilkinson Pottery. I am drawn to the natural and historical landscape that is my home and incorporate into my designs the unconstrained shapes, swirls, and patterns form the kaleidoscope of the landscape of which I am a part. The materials I use to make my pots stem from the rich, warm, and colorful North Carolina clay. I use locally sourced clay and glazes to create smooth, undulant, organic pots. Shaping each pot, giving each one its own life and character, allows me to transform the rich earth of my North Carolina home into something to be used and shared at our family tables. My mission is to create traditional-styled pots with a contemporary flair to share with family and friends. This allows me to incorporate my inspirations and materials into functional works of art to use at our tables and in our homes.