Loose Leaf Notes

– The following first appeared in the February 18, 2016 issue of The Floyd Press  

Floyd is home to a high percentage of potters.  They began coming to the county to set up working studios in the mid ‘70s.  Over the years, many of those potters have provided apprenticeship programs and learning opportunities for a younger generation of potters.

“I was inspired to bring us all together by meeting the new generation of potters – young people who are doing incredible work – and by the ones I’ve been following since they were kids,” said Jayn Avery, host of the new Jacksonville Center (Jax) exhibit, Floyd Potters: Generations of Clay.

The Hayloft Gallery show, open to the public through March 26th, features more than 18 ceramic artists that include Abby Reczek, Josh Copus, Ellen Shankin, Sarah McCarthy, Donna Polseno, Rick Hensley, Seth Phelps, Wendy Werstlein, Silvie Granatelli, Ron Sutterer, Seth Guzovsky, Josh Manning, Martha Sullivan, Jayn Avery, Adam Lake, Karl Yost, Hona Knudson and Ayla Mullen.  A special memorial display for the late Tom Phelps – a successful local production potter who influenced many local potters – is part of the exhibit. 

Avery, a well-established Floyd potter and past Jax board member, explained to the crowd at the opening reception that the stories of how each exhibitor became a potter and how they came to Floyd is an important component of the show.   Longtime Floyd resident Karl Yost, whose love of the arts was born while growing up near the Atlanta Gulf coast, wrote in his show statement, “I see my relationship to my ceramic work as an extension of my homesteading lifestyle in the woods, by the river with dirt.”

Potter Josh Manning wrote, “I found my way to Floyd like my parents and their parents before them. We ended up here and still enjoy being here, much like everyone else, though the roots are deeper.” Manning wrote that his first experience with clay happened in a high school art class.

One of Manning’s influences is David Crane, who teaches ceramics at Virginia Tech, where Manning went and is now an adjunct instructor.  Crane is a past member of the 16 Hands Studio Tour, a renowned artisan trail that was founded in 1998 and is based in Floyd County.  Founding members of the 16 Hands collective, Ellen Shankin, Donna Polseno, Rick Hensley and Silvie Granatelli, have work at the new exhibit, as do some of their past apprentices.

In Avery’s introductory remarks to the crowd, she spoke of wanting the show to demonstrate how “each potter has their own unique voice, no matter who they studied with,” and the variety of the work exhibited at the show is evidence of that.

Potter Josh Copus, who traveled from Asheville, NC to participate, was 16 when Tom Phelps encouraged him and his friends (including Phelps’s son Seth) to channel their creativity into making face pots for sale.  Phelps provided a creative environment and a constructive incentive to many teens in the Floyd community.

Although the work that Copus makes today is nothing like Phelps’s, or like the face pots he and his peers made back in the day, Phelps was an undeniable influence on Copus.   “Tom showed me a path to a life that I’ve been living ever since,” he said in his artist’s statement. In a tribute statement to Phelps, he wrote:  “When someone leaves this earth, it makes you think about their life and what they did that really mattered.”  Copus believes that Phelps’s mentor role transcended the pots that got made and may have been his greatest accomplishment.

Copus, a current 16 Hands member who recently returned from a three month visiting artist program in China, has several potter influences in Floyd.  His first clay exposure was in Jayn Avery’s studio when he and his friends rolled coils and made clay hair with a garlic press, as part of their childhood play.  At one time, Rick Hensley was Copus’s little league baseball coach.

Adding to what Avery referred to as “a big family of interconnected influences,” some potters have been drawn to Floyd by the artistic climate that the early potters helped to create. Exhibitor Ron Sutterer stated that his interest in making pottery was nurtured by moving to the artistic rich environment of Floyd County, where he has received a great deal of encouragement and technical help.  In his artist statement, he thanked the Jacksonville Center for providing him access to their gas kiln in the days before his home studio was set up.

Avery thanked her fellow potters for coming together for the show.  As further testament to the mutual support that the potters have for each other, she pointed out that putting on the show was a community effort. “I couldn’t have done this on my own,” she said.

Photos: 1. Three potters chat. Left to right are Adam Lake, Karl Yost and Silvie Granatelli. 2. Avery addresses the crowd. Adam Lake’s work is pictured.  3. Ezekiel Fugate and his young daughter peer curiously into a pot made by Josh Copus. This shot made the front page of the paper. 4. Karl Yost and his work. 5. An attendee admires a piece by Josh Manning.  From the left, potters Seth Phelps and Josh Copus listen to Avery’s address. Copus’s work is pictured. 6.  Josh Bower (center), longtime potter at Phelps who started working there as a youth, talks with attendees.  7. Three Amigos: work of childhood friends, Bower, Ian Dickman and Copus, who started making pottery at Tom Phelps’s studio. 8. A striking piece by Ron Sutterer that incorporates a crystalline glaze.  9. An exhibit attendee checks out the artist statement and work of Abby Reczek, a past apprentice with Silvie Granatelli.  10. A guest admires the work of Martha Sullivan. Sullivan worked with Silvie Granatelli and former Floyd resident and potter Davin Butterfield. Sullivan wrote in her show statement. “I find great joy in sharing my passion for this earthen material with new generations of artists and designers.”

Above: Exhibiting potters (minus some late arrivals and some who were unable to attend) are Ayla Mullen, Abby Reczek, Rick Hensley, Donna Polseno, Karl Yost, Josh Copus, Seth Phelps, Adam Lake, Ron Sutterer, Silvie Granatelli and Jayn Avery.   / Our World Tuesday