The Great Road: linking a trade route and potters
~ The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on March 6, 2014. A couple of photos have been added.
Donna Polseno did some preparatory research for The Great Road: Contemporary Wood-fired Ceramics, an exhibit she presented at Roanoke’s Taubman Museum of Art, where she is adjunct curator of ceramics. 
At the museum members’ opening Friday night, the renowned studio potter and sculptor explained her discovery of an 18th century trade route that the exhibit was named after. The route, which passed through Roanoke from Pennsylvania and continued south through Tennessee and North Carolina, linked together early American potters who settled along the route for access to trade and local clay.
The Great Road: Contemporary Wood-fired Ceramics exhibit brings together the work of nine contemporary potters who reside in the same geographic regions of the old trade route. Rob 
Barnard, Josh Copus, Kevin Crowe, Judith Duff, Dan Finnegan, Naomi Dalglish, Michael Hunt, Mark Hewitt, and Michael Kline are all wood-firing potters, practicing the earliest ceramic tradition of using wood as a fuel source for kiln firing.
Polseno spoke of the potters represented as being at the top of their field, those who teach and speak internationally and who write about ceramics. She talked about international potters who worked in the U.S. after World War II and the influence they had on regional potters, which created a shift of wood-firing beyond functionality.
One of the featured potters that Polseno introduced to the attending crowd was Josh Copus (pictured above), who was raised in Floyd County, Virginia, and currently lives in Asheville. “I have three different kilns on my property in North Carolina that all generate different effects,” said Copus, who digs his own clay.
Copus talked about the community building component of wood-firing, saying, “My kilns are staffed continuously for days. We run eight hour shifts three shifts a day. It’s process that I can’t physically do alone.” He also spoke about his focus of making pottery that reflects a sense of place.
Kevin Crowe (pictured to the left with Polseno) was also in attendance. Crowe is a featured potter from Nelson County, Virginia, who said he began his journey as a potter after seeing a historic museum piece and wondering how it was made. “It’s a good time to be a potter,” said Crowe, referring to all the information available to potters that “used to be secret.” 
Exhibit openings that were also featured on Friday night included From Picasso to Magritte: European Masters from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, FOR Instance: the Art of Martin Johnson.The Great Road: Contemporary Wood-fired Ceramics exhibit will be shown till May 17. ~ Colleen Redman
Photos: 1. A variety of forms and shapes, glazed and unglazed, were represented at The Great Road exhibit. The green glazed pieces in the center are the work of North Carolina potter Michael Kline. 2. Josh Copus, whose pot is pictured in the background, addresses the crowd at the exhibit opening. Copus, founder of Clayspace Coop in Asheville, is soon off to Australia to be a presenter at an international wood firing festival and for a ceramics work residency on the island of Tasmania. 4. Local ceramic artist and Taubman Museum adjunct ceramics curator Donna Polseno is pictured with Kevin Crowe, whose wood-fired work is part of the Great Road exhibit. Polseno has been teaching ceramics at Hollins University since the inception of the ceramics program in 2004. She is founder of the University’s “Women Working with Clay” annual symposium and was the 2013 featured artist at Floyd’s Jacksonville Center for the Arts. 5. Copus pictured with his mother (me!) in a photo that was taken by Katherine Devine. I’ve been documenting Josh’s career HERE.
March 7th, 2014 1:50 pm
Not sure I have what it takes to be a potter, but I do like looking at and hearing about it. Such a labour of love, but it is the thought of having your baby blowing up in the kiln would drive me insane.
I’ve probably mentioned previously, I lived with a couple potters while in art school. One was cool as a cucumber an pushed the boundaries doing some interesting shtufff both technically and visually. The other a wee bit neurotic and paranoid – a good person but a potter not. I think personality comes to play in pottery more so then any art?
One proud mamma yes?
March 7th, 2014 2:43 pm
I love potters and have interviewed a few. I love their down-to-earth nature (pun intended). I’m always amazed out how wood fire kilns look like something out of a fairytale (Hansel and Gretal). I don’t worry about Josh blowing up, but he did burn his nose once. He’s a very hard worker and committed to the artist’s lifestyle. Very proud for sure. http://looseleafnotes.com/category/asheville-potter-son/
March 7th, 2014 3:31 pm
Meant child as in the piece not the potter, but you knew that.
thanks for the link
March 10th, 2014 5:59 pm
Interesting exhibition. Thank you. Congratulations Donna. It is great to have your overview of contemporary high temperature wood-fire potter’s in relation to the trade route. I wish I could have heard your remarks regarding this at the exhibition.
I have been observing the development in the USA of contemporary potter’s utilizing wood-fire for the past half-century. I returned to the USA in 1964 after working as a potter in Spain for two years with a Fulbright grant, under the guidance of José Llorens Artigus and Joan Miró who used wood-fire for their 30 year ceramic collaborations. (Artigas was friends with Hamada, so when back in Spain began firing Miro’s large sculptures in a specially constructed high temperature wood-fire three chamber kiln at Gallifa, Spain, building the middle chamber around the sculpture to solve the difficulty of firing iti). By working under their direction, I fired my sculptures and ceramics with high temperature wood-fire for my ceramic work in Spain in 1962-64.
After returning to the USA in 1964, I became aware that little attention was paid to high temperature wood-firing in American ceramics at the time. I exhibited high temperature wood-fired ceramic work in Young Americas 1962 in the Everson Museum’s 22nd Ceramic National, and in Young American’s 1962, in the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, as well as in Craftsmen USA 1966, and that traveling exhibition (also the Museum of Contemporary Crafts.) No notice appeared to be made that my work was wood-fired. After looking around I discovered that Paul Chaliff was beginning to fire high temperature wood-fire in Kingston, NY, and then Rob Barnard came along slightly after Paul with his wood fired-work. I noticed Paul Chaliff’s high temperature wood-fired ceramics in the mid-60’s, early 70’s, and Rob Barnard’s wood fired-ceramics in the mid-70’s. I first met Rob when he made a presentation at the Japan Foundation in NYC. With these two potter’s, high temperature wood-fire and Anagama kilns, emanating from Japan (Paul and Rob both studied ceramics in Japan) began to make an impact on American ceramics, growing steadily throughout the country as interest increased exponentially into the special niche it appears to enjoy today (including Frank Boyden). All of sudden, it seemed to me, wood fired ceramics acquired a cachet previously not noticed, or at least not paid attention to in work I exhibited early on.
March 10th, 2014 6:08 pm
Sorry I got my sentence a little garbled, should read:
I exhibited high temperature wood-fired ceramic work in the Everson Museum’s 22nd Ceramic National in Syracuse, NY in 1962, in Young American’s 1962 in the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, NYC, as well as in Craftsmen USA 1966 in the museum of Contemporary Crafts, NYC, (and in the traveling exhibition of the museum show by the Museum of Contemporary Crafts.)
March 11th, 2014 10:00 pm
Thanks for the article Colleen !
I wish I could have been there for the opening and to see everyone and all the pots. Hopefully I can get up to see the exhibit before it is over.
BTW, I linked your article at my blog. I wish you all the best and am grateful to you for documenting the show!
March 11th, 2014 10:24 pm
You’re welcome, Michael. I had hoped to see you. Loved your work (on loan from Gibby I hear) that was center stage at the exhibit!
July 1st, 2015 11:52 am
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