Blue Ridge Pottery - History

Alun Ward/Founder
Personal Bio
And
A Brief History of Blue Ridge Pottery

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 living together and believing in their amazing combined talents. In 1998 we incorporated as Blue Ridge Pottery, Inc. and later enlarged the family ownership of the business.

The gardens have magically appeared and now the most photographed bridge in Greene County is here in our garden. Sculptures and pottery have grown throughout our grounds and standing stones have appeared. Lilies and perennials annually present us with their incredible beauty and our studio has grown to accommodate the increasing need for efficiency and changing retail trends. The 2006 year represents even further changes to our operations at the pottery. Our sister accommodation business continues to grow rapidly as our customer base appreciates the variety of our sites and repeat business continues to grow.

Quality is still everything to us in making our pottery. Each piece takes four weeks to go through our entire process with many skilled hands touching it along the way. The amount of pottery we can make in any one year is limited by the production capacity of our kilns and in some cases the age of our hands. Each year now, as more of you find us, the demand for our work increases. This year, to accommodate this, the Inn Shop will have more of a Gallery orientation with emphasis on pieces and sets of items. Our studio continue to be open and invite our guests to come and enjoy the learning experience that Blue Ridge Pottery is.

This is a personal “Thank You” to all those who have supported us and have worked with us over the years and made this “Pottery in the Mountains” dream come true. Remember that Welsh boy that loves the mountains and likes to play in the clay or down at the stream. He’s still around. He may occasionally be sitting at the wheel making pots but look for him in the garden. He’s the one that’s all dirty, with one or two grand-daughters at his side, planting flowers and playing in the dirt.