Blue Ridge Pottery - Norma

Alun     |    Norma    |    Melinda    |    Heather    |    Stephen    |    Apprentices    |    Studio Pets

Norma J. Caron-Ward

Owner/Artist

They say Home is where the Heart is. As a military dependent, I spent a lot of time moving about the country; Hawaii as a young child and all the compass points on the North American continent until we all “retired”. Except for Hawaii, I never found another “Heart Home” until I started traveling through the mountain valley where I now live. For years I passed my favorite spots along Route 33….the Pottery shop in an old historic Stage Coach Inn, a mountain hill farm surrounded by ponds of peaceful beauty, and an antiques shop across the highway from what would be the road to where I now live.

Twelve years ago, “retiring”, again, from a 22 year career working in Human Services. I had the pleasure and pain of working with a range of disability populations including developmentally delayed, head injured and emotionally or physically challenged children and adults. I had taught and researched ways of using art and creating spaces to bring healing to one’s Spirit, evoke health, beauty and inspiration. An opportunity came to me to develop a program to be taught in the Montessori School environment. This found me traveling extensively on the East Coast and areas around Santa Fe, New Mexico doing workshops for the teachers and “play days” for the children.

My “Heart” was always torn between my love of art (and the ways it helps to grow us through exploration and beauty) and my need to make a “living”. My dream continued to be to make art, create spaces, and to illustrate books for children with my water colored drawings, while working with a community of artists in a healthy and functional way. Of course, doing so while fulfilling my needs financially as well.

Memorial Day weekend that year, I said goodbye to an old way of life that taught me much and allowed me to give in service to many people over the years. Visiting a friend, I traveled my favorite mountain valley road again. She’d begun working as a clay artist a few months before at a local pottery. Yes, the very same one I passed hundreds of times, Blue Ridge Pottery.
My friend introduced me to the potter who owned the studio. Having sold a month’s worth of my hand made jewelry for his Gallery Shop, I drove away musing on the wonder of the poems he’d read me on the banks of Swift Run Creek. Poems he’d written years ago mirrored words and dreams my own heart spoke to me nightly for years.

Twelve years later my Home is where my Heart is. That potter is my husband, those artists are our “family”, and we all use our skills as artists to make our living. Our way of life allows us to walk our values, to share and to explore ways of functioning as whole human beings.
We enjoy sharing that way of life with all of you who visit our shop, celebrate special occasions at our B&B, refresh your spirit at our mountain farm retreat or just come to this valley because it warms your heart and makes you feel at “Home” too. We’ll look forward to sharing some time with you in a really heartfelt way.