Spruce Pine’s annual Potters Market returns
The annual Spruce Pine Potters Market, which was held last Saturday and Sunday, brought a packed crowd to the Cross Street Commerce Center.
Market veterans were pleasantly surprised by the larger than expected turnout. “This is exciting,” Penland potter Val Schnaufer said, as she balanced greeting friends with answering questions from potential buyers.
Assistants at the gate were not sure of the exact crowd size, but described it as “a lot.”
If the crowd size was a mystery, so too was the official number of this annual event.
“I thought this was the 19th market,” Penland potter Stormie Burns said, “but COVID and Helene threw off the count. It could be the 17th, but we’re still debating.”
What is not in dispute is that the Potters Market was founded by the Burnsville ceramic artist Ken Sedberry and his wife Connie in 2006. Considering the number of potters in Mitchell and Yancey counties, and the fact that the majority of the artists were drawn to the area to work with the native clays and other natural materials, a bazaar, planned and operated by the artists themselves, seemed vital in helping sustain the community.
The roster of participating potters was a who’s who of the region, from young artists Daniel Garver of Spruce Pine and Julie Wiggins of Penland to a few of the renowned veterans of the scene: Bakersville potters Terry Gess, Nick and Lisa Joerling, and Penland’s famed Cynthia Bringle, the doyenne of Western North Carolina’s pottery scene.
“I worked on this piece of mine with Cynthia Bringle,” Penland potter Susan Feagin cheerfully told a buyer. “That’s some lineage.”
Although sharing the same medium, the area’s potters all have their own individual techniques and styles. One artist’s stall of stoneware shares a wall with another artist’s fragile porcelain. The work might be hand-built, thrown on a wheel, or created from slab construction or slip casting (where liquified clay is poured into molds).
“It’s days like this,” attendee Gina Phillips declared, “when I feel fortunate to live here.”