Asheville | Spruce Pine | North Carolina

In the northwest corner of North Carolina, a long history of craftmanship is nestled into the folds of the Appalachian Blue Ridge Mountains. We travel through Asheville and nearby mountain towns to visit with makers building their art, and their lives, in this storied region.  
Words and photos by Cajsa Landin 

[ After our visit the two storms Helen and Milton hit the area. Asheville and River Arts District was hit hard. If you want to help out to rebuild studios and buildings please visit: https://www.riverartsdistrict.com/donate/]

The Appalachian Mountains are like grandparents,” says Kelsey Schissel, a ceramic artist with a studio and gallery in West Asheville, snugly resting in its Appalachian valley. “They are weathered and wise, they will just snuggle you up and everything is okay.” I’ve come to her studio on Haywood Road, the main street that cuts through the hip part of town, dotted with restaurants, breweries, studios, and music venues, to learn more about why this region has so many makers. 

For Kelsey, it was a given from the first time she touched clay on the potter’s wheel. 

“It was like my soul was electrified, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do,” she says, explaining that maybe it was easier because she grew up with a Maker father, a master woodworker and blacksmith. “It didn’t occur to me that I couldn’t make a career out of this. Because I grew up seeing it done.” 

Clay therapy

Pottery is huge in Asheville and North Carolina, thanks in large part to the abundant and diverse clay found in the region. Seagrove, a small town about three hours east, established a pottery tradition before the American Revolution in the 18^th century (and, of course, Indigenous people of the region were savvy to it well before that). These days, though, Asheville has seen an influx of new people moving into town, either to pursue crafts, or to take advantage of remote work in a perennially cool town. Kelsey says if she hadn’t bought her house when she did, twenty years ago, she wouldn’t have been able to live here now and pursue her career the way that she has, a sentiment I hear many times during my visit to the city.  

“I think pottery is very grounding,” she says, “and very challenging. I’m constantly learning new things, and it’s exhilarating to not know if something new will work or fail.” With a well-established collection under her belt, aptly named Plays in Mud, she was itching to create something new. “I gave myself permission to play, and I started to test these tiny little vases.” She shows me delicate ceramic pieces with nature images printed onto the clay in a unique method, and large vases in ethereal, shimmering colors. “Playing” doesn’t seem to be a bad way to spend one’s days. 

River Arts District

Asheville, of course, hasn’t been slow to capitalize on its creative craftspeople, and the opportunity to discover new artists is well organized. The River Arts District, an old industrial part of town with old warehouses and a lovely river walk, has been spruced up to hold studios and galleries galore. 

Kelsey had told me she had a studio there twenty years ago, when the lock on the door barely kept anyone out and you had to check your surroundings before running to your car. “But rent was a hundred dollars!” I wander around the artist studios in Riverview Station and lose myself at the massive art gallery Marquee. In one studio, I meet Reiko Miyagi of Studio Tabula Rasa, a Japanese potter who’s had a studio here for ten years. When she first came here, “there was only onecafé,” she says. The evolution of Asheville is easy to see through each artist’s origin story. 

“It’s easy to be an artist, but you have to do the work,” she says as I wander off.

A cup of coffee and a walk to the studio

“My story is really our story,” says Ann Batton of Batton Clayworks when I ask how it all got started. “I fell in love with pottery, and when I met Sandy, he took a liking to it too, so we ended up doing it together.”

“And here we are, over 20 years later,” her husband, Sandy Batton, chimes in. 

After a quick stop at the kitschy and oh-so friendly Tastee Diner on Haywood (shout out to a fried chicken sandwich that made me do a double take because the chicken was so tender I didn’t think it was real), I have settled down in the little studio the Battons built in their own backyard, and where they create pottery together through team work that sounds, frankly, impressive. While Sandy handles most of the throwing, glazing and firing, Ann is busy with the intricate carving, detailing, and logistical work, but they say it’s changed over time.

“We’ve learned how to shift our roles and fill in the gaps,” says Ann. “Sandy teaches a lot of the classes, and I have to get my fingers in the clay.” Their storytelling is seamless, deftly handing off the set up of one idea to be finished by the other. It’s easy to see how their pottery craft could follow the same melody. 

The pandemic gave them the final push to move from craft fairs to selling mostly in galleries and online, as well as teaching more classes. “You know how you have that white tablecloth, and all the stuff is sitting on top of it and you yank it out? I feel like we’re the ones still standing. It was scary, but it became a blessing,” says Ann. When I say it seems nice to be able to have your studio and your work so close to home, they tell me they always had that vision of being able to walk across the yard with a cup of coffee and get to work. 

We walk around the little shop in their studio, full of whimsical cups, intricate tea pots, and classic collections. Ann tells me about how humbling the work is, and how just recently Sandy had worked on a huge planter that exploded in the kiln. 

“I’ll try again soon, I just need to get over that first,” he says. I ask about the best part of the job, and Sandy is quick to reply. “I think it’s that I really love what I do.” 

Welcome to Spruce Pine

About an hour outside of town, after a climb through winding mountain passes, breathtaking views on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and a bit of Dolly on the radio, lies Spruce Pine, population 2,200. A mining town – one of the largest suppliers of the high-quality quartz used in computer microchips – the little community is also home to a growing number of artists and makers, thanks to its proximity to famed Penland School of Craft. 

I cross the river and railroad tracks to reach the old town. Here, in a back alley, I find Morgan Hill, one of the founders and co-owners of Treats Studios, spray painting wooden jewelry. 

Like so many other craftspeople living in the region, Morgan came here to study at Penland (“Are you going there? You have to go there,” she says before I’ve even set foot in the studio). Originally working in fine furniture making, she pivoted to sculpting. “But I had been making this wooden jewelry as a side hustle and it just grew. Now I can’t stop doing it because it’s what pays the bills.”  She shows me a collection called Bad Habits, and it takes everything I have not to buy the entire set of cigarette, food, domino, and cocktail shrimp earrings that may or may not represent my own bad habits. 

Morgan shows me around the studio, where a handful of artists have their own space in a collectively owned building. Originally, the group rented space in the building, and bought it after a few years. Her partner, Jack Mauch, is working on woodwork across the room. 

“The building belonged to a newspaper, so the basement was caked with ink and dirt and grime. We really had to do a lot of work to clean it up, but we still have the old printer.” 

Owning the building also means they can develop the space, and rent out studio space to other artists. There is also subsidized space for emerging artists who want to try their hand at their craft. On the ground floor, they are developing plans for a gallery space – “but it can be whatever people want,” Morgan says. “Maybe we do karaoke sometimes, or build a bar. One thing we’re really ready for is for Spruce Pine to have a good bar.” 

On the top floor, we run into Sarah, one of the artists renting a studio from the collective. She says she needed to be back among people again, to not be too isolated in her work. She appreciates showing up in a space where people have agreed to carry the torch of making, together. “There are definitely days when I feel like, is this what I’m doing? Is this silly? Then you need that community around you.”

First dates that last

Also on the top floor, I meet Rickie Barnett and Lynne Hobaica, a couple who create both separately under their own names, and together under the moniker Two Headed Diver. They, too, came by way of Penland, where Rickie was a studio assistant. They, too, bring up the artist community as the main draw to stay.

“I never thought I would own a house, but because it’s more affordable here we realized it was possible. You can have all the benefits of living somewhere rural, but with so many people from all over the world who go to Penland, you can meet like-minded people. It’s unusual for small towns like this to have booming art communities,” says Rickie, while Smokey the dog comes up to say hi. 

I get more and more curious about why there are so many artists and craftspeople working on their projects together. Having met at a bar Pittsburgh through mutual friends when Lynne was living in Seattle and Rickie was in North Carolina, their first date set the tone for their relationship, as Rickie came to Seattle to visit. 

“Our first date was two weeks long… That was maybe reckless, but it worked out!” Rickie says. Lynne explains, “We both feel compelled to make work all the time, so we just went to my studio and started making pieces side by side. That was our first collaboration.” It’s clear that to many of these makers, creating art is something they just need to do. “It’s sort of indicative of what it’s going to be like with me anyway. Like if you’re not on board with this kind of life it’s never going to work out,” says Rickie.

Losing and finding faith 

They both grew up in very religious families, which informs and inspires their work. Folklore, mythology, and dramatic iconography of religion come up as common theme. Rickie says, “For both of us, losing religion as well as losing people close to us, it set the tone for the work we were making. How do you keep showing up? How do you keep staying even if you know the pain is going to happen again? Even in love – we got married but chances are one of us is going to watch the other one die, do we still want to go on this journey?”

At this point, Smokey the dog perks up an ear and walks over. Rickie looks down at her and continues. “Even getting Smokey, after we’d lost a previous dog… Now she wants to be let in and out of the house a thousand times to chase the birds, and it can get frustrating, but if I can remind myself to be present with the moment, to use it in a playful way, then I can actually enjoy it.”

“Yeah,” agrees Lynne, “it’s like meditation, a way to work through big feelings.”  

Neither of them came from families where this line of work is normal. “I’m the first person in my family to go to college, or even to leave Phoenix,” says Lynne. “I’m the black sheep for sure!” Rickie explains that he comes from a long line of poverty. “I think that was hard for my parents, they know what it is to be super poor. So then to choose this career that doesn’t guarantee money…” 

Living somewhere more affordable helps them attain that dream, even though there are sacrifices to living in a small city. They describe being able to have the times to sit by the river, to breathe. “Also, having friends in the arts community means you can go to a dinner and have constructive conversations with 20 people and not feel like you are completely ‘other’.” 

“We get tunnel vision when there’s deadlines coming up. I got pulled over recently because my registration had expired. But I get so tired of things like this taking up time and getting in the way of what I want to do. “ 

In the end, I do make it to Penland. A sprawling campus of old buildings, wonderful mountain views, and a heavy peace punctuated here and there by the sounds of craft machinery. The dichotomy feels emblematic: crafting can be a lonely endeavor, tinkering obsessively with new processes or ideas. But in this region of North Carolina, through guilds, fairs, communities, and collectives, talented makers are finding their footing by helping each other. They create their crafts because they can’t not. I run into Adam, a jewelry maker currently in residency at Penland with his partner. They are still trying to figure out how to build a career as makers, because it’s definitely what they want to do. “Creating a free life is hard,” he says, “but it’s less hard here.” •

For more info about what to do in North Carolina klick here.

[ After our visit the two storms Helen and Milton hit the area. Asheville and River Arts District was hit hard. If you want to help out to rebuild studios and buildings please visit: https://www.riverartsdistrict.com/donate/]

This story is from American Trails Magazine #16, order your print copy here.