Festival goers browsing through displayed pottery at the WNC Western Pottery Festival on Nov. 2, 2019 in Sylva. Photo by Michelle Ellison.
Residents of Jackson County this past weekend didn’t even have to walk out of the neighborhood to support local art. The 15th annual WNC Pottery Festival was held in Bridge Park, Sylva, on Saturday, Nov. 2, offering art to everybody.
The event showcased works by over 40 master potters from all over the U.S. It included a number of performances and demonstrations of various pottery techniques. For example, potter Joe Frank McKee from Treehouse Pottery did a demo of the raku technique, which usually involves removing pottery from the kiln while at an immense heat and placing it into containers.
“We bring potters from over a dozen different states, so it’s a whole lot of work, and practices that we wouldn’t be seeing around here otherwise,” Zan Barnes, an administrator of the event, said.
Eight ceramics students at WCU were also given the opportunity to sell and showcase their art. Students were able to keep all but 20 percent of the profits made from the pottery they sold, with that 20 percent going to the WCU ceramics department.
“All of our potters have sold at least one thing,” Taylor Short, WCU student, said. While Short is an entrepreneurship student, she had 18 credit hours to in her major to dedicate to whatever she wanted, so she chose ceramics. “[The most important takeaway is] exposure. Getting to know how to sell your stuff. You can’t just come out here and set up a table and not speak to anybody.”
Displayed pottery at the WNC Western Pottery Festival in Sylva on Nov. 2, 2019. Photo by Michelle Ellison.
The event also showed the massive pottery community that resides within Western North Carolina. The Village Potters, a clay center in Asheville, is nationally known, with students coming from all over the country to study there.
“There’s a lot of naturally occurring clay in this area,” Tori Motyl, a featured potter at the event and a member of Asheville’s pottery community, said. “So, it’s always had a strong history of clay, and so just because of that there’s been a strong following and understanding that this is where you come for clay. So, people will move here from all over the country just to study clay.”
While it is a common belief that it’s difficult to be a full-time potter, Motyl upholds that it’s just like any other profession. It involves making an item and knowing how to sell it. What better place to sell it, than a pottery festival?
If you missed the event, there’s no need to worry. The administrators are already hard at work for next year’s show.
“We start working on the show about a month after it ends each year,” Barnes said. “Everything from putting applications out and PR, to doing advertising all through the year.”
Additionally, it is important to remember that you can support these artists year round. All of the artists featured in the event have storefronts and websites where they sell their craft. Motyl has her website, Motyl Pottery, while Barnes runs Zan Barnes Pottery. If you want to purchase the work of a specific artist, check out the WNC Pottery Festival’s 2019 Exhibiting Artists list for the names, locations and storefronts of all the potters included in the festival.
