Our History

There have been potters for a really long time. Some ancestor of each of us played with a lump of clay.  Discarded into the dying embers of a fire it became a pot. The fire forever changed it.  The lump, now energized, became a part of the history of man.
 
Never mind the art, potters just like to play in the mud.  They like to play with fire.  All of the things your mother told you not to do, potters do.  They are the alchemists amongst us, mixing fire and earth and water, minerals and oxides.  They make magic.  They are old and gnarled, they are young and beautiful , they hold the earth on the tips of their fingers.
 
We have now been making pottery for over thirty years.  Starting in Franklin, North Carolina and moving to Virginia in the 1980's we purchased the Golden Horseshoe Inn as our venue for the past twenty five years plus. We make a variety of high fired stoneware and pocelain products which are mostly functional but also highly decorative.  Alun, our Master Potter, has developed a series of glazes based on the colors of the Blue Ridge Mountains which have pleased customers and visitors alike for many years.
 
Our pottery process takes approximately six to eight weeks for each piece.  Pottery is thrown on the wheel, or hand built, is trimmed after a few days before placed on drying racks for up to three weeks.  When completely dry the pottery is fired in the kiln for the first time and becomes a bisque pot.  It is now ready for glazing and decorating before being fired a second time up to 2350 f.  After a few days, the kiln is cool enough to open and unload.  Bottoms are ground smooth and pieces are priced and put into our shop.