North of Asheville

Here's where I went Saturday.
Will Ruggles and Douglass Rankin Pottery

Chris Salter, Rachel Lohnes, and myself all decided to check out some real-life, no-messin-around potters in Bakersville, NC.

Perfect day. No clouds. 55-60 degrees. Autumn in full swing up in the mountains. We arrived around 11:30 and parked at the foot of the trail.

The trail was about half a mile uphill and ended at two cabins, their gallery and their house. Their pottery is great, all of the glazework is phenomenal. What's impressive to me, is that they bracketed their pallete to fit the exact look and feel that they wanted.

This makes their workspace very reserved. Two wheels, a few small cabinets for some glazing chemicals and then the rest is shelving space.

All of their stuff is salt/soda fired in a three-chamber, wood and oil run kiln.
It's fired to a high temperature with just wood while the soda or salt is thrown in. Then it's finished off with the oil. No expenses of natural gas.

Overall, very inspirational. Wonderful people, had opened their house to guests. They served tea and food out of their own ware. They have this view that the last step to the art of pottery is how the owner uses it in his/her own life.

So Chris and I decided to get gungho and experiment with a sawdust firing this Friday. We're going to fill and oildrum with sawdust and bone dry ware with slip and see what happens. We'll see.