North Carolina

3/04/2024 09:26:00 PM

North Carolina

Location: Seagrove
When: early February
Miles traveled: 619
Price of gas: 2.89
Interest: Pottery
High point: Finding a shared joy. (See video)
Low point: I am tired of being a consumer, want to produce something.

One thing learned: I feel obligated to buy something if I have a conversation with the artist.

Terminology for pottery traditions of the South: Pottery wheels are called lathes. The action is called "turning" rather than throwing. Kilns are "burned" not fired and side-stoking a wood kiln is called "blasting".

North Carolina Pottery Center

Seagrove, NC is called the pottery capitol of the USA. 80 to 100+ ceramic artists live and work in the surrounding area. It is a place to come and buy pottery (some artists only sell in person, not online), learn about NC pottery history, talk to artists or their spouses (who are often manning the store front). The North Carolina Pottery Center is a good place to start. Concise exhibitions explain the creation process of a clay pot, history of ceramics and how the process, functionality, and intentions have changed over the centuries, a small gallery houses examples of surrounding artists' work, and a map of the area lists artist's locations. I talked with and visited four studios; Frank Neef, Eck McCanless, Bulldog Pottery, and Blue Hen Pottery.

Frank Neef makes crystalline glazed pieces with piercings/carved designs. Frank and his wife Cindy moved to Seagrove in their later years, desiring to join the supportive ceramic community and to reduce the number of art fairs they attended/sold pottery at.

Eck McCanless turns agateware and likes making fun silly pieces, but they don't sell as well. Turning since he was 4 years old, he remembers sitting in front of his mother at the lathe, she guiding his hands on the clay. Eck does a turning demonstration for every visitor that comes into his studio, and believes you can't get better without messing up.

Bruce Gholson and Samantha Hennekeare the artists of Bulldog Pottery. They play with molybdenum crystals (which produce a different shape than most traditional crystalline glazes) and slip applied texture. I like their dot textured pottery. I did not talk with the artists, as they were working in the studio, but spoke with Samantha's father who enjoys seeing his daughter and son-in-law succeed in their art careers.

At Blue Hen Pottery, I met Anne Pärtna who wood fires all of her pieces. Originally from Estonia, Anne says customers in Europe focus more on the pottery, while in America customers focus more on the artist-customer relationship. And it sounded like a lot more effort is required to sell pieces in USA because is it more than a simple financial transaction, a relationship or trust must be established first.

Clay sculptures from start of process

Carolina Bronze Sculpture is a neat place to tour to learn about and see the many steps of bronze casting. Start to finish, life size bronze figure can be created in 6 to 8 weeks. They use the lost wax casting method. During the process, a full size wax model is created. What is wax, will eventually be replaced by bronze. The model might be light when wax, but every one pound of wax becomes 10 pounds when bronze! Towards the end of the process, a patina is added to protect the sculpture from rusting and to provide color details. Then a layer of silicone is sprayed onto the sculpture, followed by a layer of furniture wax to help protect the patina from the many hands that might touch the bronze sculpture.

Starworks, an art center south of Seagrove, offers classes and workshops in clay, glass, and metal. They are also the main ceramic material supplier for the area. I attended one of their candy dish glass blowing workshops. The hands on process to make the dish took ~15 minutes. I added colored glass to a mass of clear glass, melted them together, and reshaped them. Then I blew into a rubber tube that was connected to the pipe to expand the glass, while the employee I was assisting shaped the glass. Once the shape was large enough and reheated, I sucked the air out, which caused the top to collapse back in and form a double wall dish. The employee readied the glass to be removed from the pipe, I hit the pipe to break the bowl off and then used a board to level the bowl onto a smaller mass of glass that functioned as the foot/base. And that was it. Really short for what I imagined glass blowing required. It was put into a kiln to slowly cool down, and I picked it up a few days later!