Coming Soon to a Back Road Near You: Floyd’s 16 Hands Country Artisan Tour
“The reason people need this is the same reason they need to get out in nature or visit a farm. To reconnect. When people come here, they get to meet the artists; they like that. I’m in here being as real as I can because people are buying a part of my life.” ~ Josh Copus from Our State magazine interview/feature by Alli Marshall
“For once in my life I’m like 3 weeks ahead of schedule!” my son Josh announced on Facebook after turning my kitchen into a pottery gallery and then hopping on a plane to Tasmania for a month.
He’s on his way to Australia for a woodfiring conference where he will be one of the presenters. Joe and I and Josh’s guest artist, another potter from Asheville, will be standing in for him on April 30 and May 1st for the Studio Tour of 16 Hands, of which Josh is a member.
The beauty of Josh’s pots is that they are made with wild clay, dug directly from a tobacco farmer’s field in North Carolina by Josh and a friend. Wild and fired with wood in a kiln that Josh handbuilt gives them an elemental presence that “references historical forms and processes while remaining relevant to the contemporary art world of our age,” Josh states in his bio.
Also in his bio, he talks about the convergence of rural agriculture and art that he experienced growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Floyd, his first pottery mentor Tom Phelps, and Clayspace Coop, the ceramic arts cooperative and gallery located in Asheville’s Historic River Arts District that Josh founded.
Post notes: More stories on Josh, including He Gets a Kick out of Bricks, the Carolina Kiln Build Josh headed up on his property in Marshall County NC, and Country Boy, an essay I wrote about Josh and read on WVTF public radio are HERE. Read about 16 Hands HERE.
April 8th, 2011 9:30 pm
Your son’s work is just breathtaking! Uh. Oh. I hear thunder… probably should shut down.
April 8th, 2011 9:34 pm
We have it here too! I closed all my programs in case I had to make a fast exit. Tornado warnings and dog chewing at the door even.
April 8th, 2011 10:43 pm
BEAUTIFUL work. I want to be there with a pocketful of cash because these works are beautiful.
April 8th, 2011 11:33 pm
All of his work is so very beautiful….(I still have my brick that he sent through the mail…)
How great that he is going halfway round the world, or more, to be a part of this special Happening!
April 10th, 2011 5:40 am
1st photo, tall piece at top on left….WOWOWOW! sure wish it were sitting in my home!
has a year already passed since the last one? amazing how time is flying. hope josh is having a marvelous time on the other side of the world.
April 10th, 2011 9:59 am
They have two a year. One near Thanksgiving and one the first weekend in May.
April 11th, 2011 7:35 am
Josh’s items are great. I am still waiting for my cups!!??
Does your kitchen look like this now? xoxo
April 11th, 2011 8:44 am
Yes, that’s what my kitchen looks like for the next few weeks. I have two mugs for you here. Leave room in your suitcase this year.
April 11th, 2011 7:51 pm
Oh Cool!! I am excited!
April 12th, 2011 10:04 am
I like your son’s pottery, especially the large pieces!
Wendy
April 13th, 2011 11:08 pm
[…] My son Josh is in Australia eating kangaroo burgers as we […]
April 30th, 2011 12:31 pm
[…] Since he couldn’t be here, Josh wrote a note to tour goers about his latest adventure, which I posted: Welcome and thank you for coming on the 16 Hands tour today. I am sorry that I could not be here to share it with you but I am in Australia right now. As much as I love coming home and sharing my work with everyone who comes on the tour, I was extended an opportunity to work in Australia that was simply too good to refuse. I was asked to come to Australia as a visiting artist, working at the studio of award winning Tasmanian potter Ben Richardson, and as a delegate at the International Woodfiring Conference, where I will be presenting as part of a panel discussion on Meaning in Woodfiring and as a team leader in the International Kiln Building Competetion. In addition to making work and firing in a Anagama kiln at Ben’s studio in Tasmania, I will also be firing with Rob Barron in his 5 chamber Noborigama kiln in Gippsland, outside of Melbourne, and hopefully fitting in a little time to explore this amazing landscape. It truly is a blessing to be able to travel as a part of my career and the fortune of being able to work in such amazing places is not lost on me. I have worked very hard to make this happen and am financing my whole trip with my work. I have always received such a great amount of support from the Floyd community and I want to thank everyone for all they have done to help me accomplish my goals. Thank you for coming out today and please come back for the Fall tour because I will have heaps of new stories to share. All the best, Josh […]
May 1st, 2011 11:09 am
[…] forms of my son Josh Copus’s wild clay wood-fired pots, on display in my kitchen since he left for Tasmania in early […]
May 1st, 2011 11:35 am
[…] forms of my son Josh Copus’s wild clay wood-fired pots, on display in my kitchen since he left for Tasmania in early […]
May 1st, 2011 6:52 pm
[…] forms of my son Josh Copus’s wild clay wood-fired pots, on display in my kitchen since he left for Tasmania in early […]