Blue Ridge Pottery

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The idea that became Blue Ridge Pottery probably started about sixty years ago. As a small child I grasped my mother's hand and walked across a boggy Welsh pasture to the farm below where we watched farmer Hugh Morgan dip milk from a large frothy tank. He used a brown and worn pottery pitcher and dipped milk into the larger brown jug my mother had carried across the fields. Pottery was just a part of life in 1940's Wales; we drank from it, cooked in it and used it to carry our milk home to a tiny cottage in the Welsh Mountains. It was pottery of simple and useful shapes. It was usually brown, and perhaps in concert with the basic gospel values of the Welsh Valleys people it was functional without adornment. It was often marked with Welsh words Llaith ( milk ) Sigwer, scratched defiantly into the clay by some round faced, white bearded, Welsh potter. The forms were strong and direct. Form followed functionality and stressed smooth but simple lines. The glazes were generally variations on brown with occasional splashes of blues or yellows, enough to be noticed, but respectably. While using clay as a three dimensional ingredient in landscape model building, I became fascinated with the plasticity and range of possibilities with this amazing material. After a career in management of an Urban Design and Planning company in Canada and a few years playing with boats in the Caribbean the clay called once again.. This time it was an old potter in a mountainside pottery in North Carolina, Jack Fleenor, who reminded me of those early days in Wales. The opportunity came to create a studio in the North Carolina Mountains and The Potter's Loft was born on Rt. 441 just south of Franklin in Macon County. It was a life of shows and movement for a several of years. It was a time of rapid growth curves and playing with glazes. It was a time of invention and of loading pots into an old Suburban every weekend to attend this or that show. After a couple of years it became obvious that the style and color of our work was appealing to Virginians. Shows in Williamsburg, Richmond, Norfolk, Roanoke, Lynchburg, Charlottesville and Harrisonburg were among our best. The ten hour drive from Western N. C. to these Virginia shows meant almost a two day production loss each week. The decision quickly became a move to Virginia and a location that was central to our best shows. An opportunity to locate in the Greene House Shops in Ruckersville as one of its first tenants presented itself and kilns and equipment were loaded up and moved. The barred window basement of the old Blue Jeans factory was hardly the most inspiring place to make pottery. On the other side of the basement workshop was the Blue Ridge Food Bank creating constant odors some good some not so. However, the convenience of the upstairs shop and the kindness and support of the owners made us an instant success. Gradually we did less and less shows as our central Virginia location in a high traffic tourist area meant our customers came to us. After several years we were able to move our studio to our home on the side of Powell mountain. Here we made pottery in a small building which has since become our mother-in-law house. With many people believing in us and supporting both our pottery and our growth into larger quarters we were able to purchase The Golden Horseshoe Inn. The Inn was less than two miles from home and located in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains adjacent to the boundary of Shenandoah National Park. The County of Greene approved us for the location of the pottery and the building of kilns and use of the historic Inn building as our shop. Over the many years we have been in this location on Golden Horseshoe Road many things have changed. Children have grown up to have children of their own and have come back to help in the family business. We have grown to include much loved son-in-laws and adopted daughters. It is no longer one person but a committed group of artists making a