Our day was starting out dull, then I got an idea to go and visit some neighbors I'd heard tell of but never had a chance to meet in person. We had an excuse to stop in on some local business but to my surprise, ended up staying for well over an hour taking photos of their studio and wares. They turned out to be the nicest folks. Nestled among the steep and craggy rocks, high atop Joppa Mountain, the collection of artisan potters seemed entirely at home in the backwood hills of Southern Appalachia. (My camera really doesn't do the mountainside justice. It's very, very steep and rocky. Just beautiful!)

Being afraid of heights, the trip was still a bit of a thrill for me though by now, not unfamiliar. We'd been up this road before to steal glimpses of Poor Valley from on high and had passed the sign for Joppa Mountain Pottery many times along the Appalachian Quilt Trail and wondered about the place but hadn't the nerve to stop in. All the artists in Grainger County, far as I know, work out of their homes. And being that it's also their home, we just hated to impose. Looking back now, we should have known they'd welcome visitors. After all, there's signs all over the road inviting people stop. Now I'm glad I did. We had lots of fun!

It was not only fun to look at all the various types, shapes, and sizes of pottery made on Joppa Mountain but the most fascinating part was to have walked in on the group at work and been able to watch and learn about the stages in the creation of both stoneware and Raku-style pottery. With the exception of a few modern kilns, it was almost like stepping back in time. (Or maybe I just have a very active imagination.) Lewis and I realized immediately we'd really lucked out coming up there. I mean in the nicest way, what a weird trip! And what an eclectic bunch of people together, young and old, related, not related...master craftsmen, apprentices, all coming and going but all taking important roles in the process as needed.

The studio looks different than last year. They've recently enclosed their stoneware kiln. It used to be outdoors. The studio has a meandering, added on feeling. I don't think I've seen a place that left a stronger impression of Appalachian Mountain folk. Before we got out of the car, we were greeted by a smiling bearded man and bluegrass music coming from the studio.

Meet MacDonald Cosby (at left), the master potter, "throwing" a clay vase on a pottery wheel. (If you've ever seen the movie Ghost, you know this is not as easy as it looks!) I found out online on their old website (now at joppapottery.com ) that MacDonald graduated with Honors from Brevard College with a degree in Art, and followed up with a Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Tennessee in 1977. He didn't tell us this in person. He did tell us he and his wife Ann Cosby [shown below] started up their studio here on Joppa Mountain in 1995. MacDonald says he's been making pottery for thirty years now. Ann's been working with clay for about twenty years and at one point, owned and ran a large ceramics shop. What they do here at Joppa Mountain is a different process from ceramics, which uses molds. At Joppa, they work the clay by hand and each piece is unique. They mix up their own food-safe (lead-free) glazes and sometimes even pull the East Tennessee red clay right out of the mountain for a change of pace. Generally, however, the clay comes from Georgia, where they're from originally.

At right, Ann Cosby is shown holding up a small vase made from Joppa Mountain clay. Note the reddish orange color. Anyone here locally recognizes it right away because this clay is everywhere. It can be a real pain for a gardener to work with but Ann says it's great for pottery and depending upon how it's processed can add a very interesting texture to a piece. "Smooth and not a lot of grog" is how she describes Joppa clay. Grog means impurities (yes, I had to ask). After they pulled several tons of it from the ground, she said she got the kids to work the clay by putting it in a pan and squishing it like grapes. Sometimes she'll filter out the impurities with a sieve but sometimes not. Depends what type of thing she's working on. The unfinished piece she's holding at the right consists of clay that's been refined.

This is Shane Fowler (below) cleaning out the bits of eye and mouth that have been cut out of some jack-o-lantern jars fired once in the bisque kiln but not yet glazed. Notice the Smoky the Bear shirt Shane's wearing? ha. That struck me as funny when I found out what his job is today.

Today Shane spent part of his afternoon working the propane kiln where they fire their Raku pottery at 1,932 degrees F. (Just holding the camera over to kiln to get a shot of the hot interior just about baked my hands.) Shane wears a firemen's gloves and jacket when working near the hot kiln and flames but says they've caught fire many times.

Raku is a firing process that reacts with metals in the glaze when set amongst some sort of combustible material. In this case, Shane is using a barrel of hay.

Raku is pretty much a gamble. Different metals used in the glaze can determine a general color scheme but the potter never knows exactly how the piece will turn out because so much is determined by variables such as the contact of combustible materials or smoke on the glaze. See above how vibrant the colors of the "Pumpkin Wizzard"'s hat are due to the Raku firing process and metallic glaze? Just beautiful. This happy pumpkin costs probably around $450 due to the enormous size and amount of materials and time involved in making it.

Sharon Maddix has been an apprentice at Joppa Mountain Pottery for over a year. She started out last year with some art classes for seniors at Walters' State College and progressed to a more focused interest in potter-ing at Joppa. She's shown below with just a few of her many stoneware creations made at Joppa.