When Tara McCoy first began teaching pottery in 2016, it was her least favorite artistic medium, trumped by shell carving, finger weaving and bead work.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians enrolled member had been planning a 2016 pottery festival as part of the Kananesgi Committee — a group of four women dedicated to supporting artists through fashion and art shows and training opportunities — and had hit a wall trying to recruit Qualla Boundary potters.
“There was only probably five potters in our community, and most of them were elders, and so that opened up [a reason] to say, ‘You probably need to start teaching pottery,’” she recalled.
McCoy, a Right Path Leadership specialist at the Ray Kinsland Leadership Institute, could best coordinate classes outside of working hours. At first, she held Saturday and Sunday standalone courses.
“But it just wasn’t hitting what I wanted it to hit,” she said. “It wasn’t producing potters.”
McCoy switched up her strategy.
“I just thought it might be better if I do a three-month class two or three times a month or on a weekend, and then give them homework before we meet again,” she explained.
That basic framework became the foundation of the Didanesisgi Gadagwatli (Mud Dauber) Community Workshop, a beginner-friendly, no-cost pottery series meant to guide a group of about 12 to 20 participants through basic pottery types, styles and designs. Classes, held at the Museum of the Cherokee People, start at 9 a.m. and end at 4 p.m., though participants may opt to work past clean-up.
The workshop has certainly achieved its original vision.
At a Kanenesgi art show last Saturday with four or five potters, two or three were Didanesisgi Gadagwatli graduates.
And as of 2026, five annual cohorts have graduated the workshop, which culminates in a grand showcase of that year’s student works currently on display at the Museum of the Cherokee People.
Although EBCI now boasts an abundance of potters, McCoy has no intention of discontinuing the workshop. She’s even looking to add an advanced course for previous cohorts. Indeed, in her list of top creative pursuits, pottery ranks first.
Cultural ties
“I didn’t fall in love with pottery until when I started teaching class, and I started researching my family,” McCoy told The Smoky Mountain News.
There’s something special, she said, about making art within one’s original homelands — and using the same materials as one’s predecessors. Jackson said McCoy was intentional about explaining the history of ancestral Cherokee techniques, like stamping.
Traditional Cherokee pottery remains unglazed, is stamped with wooden paddles and can be burnished or coated with slip. In the mid-20th century, Cherokee potters, to make a living, had to craft non-traditional pieces which catered to the preferences of tourists.
She tells her students, alternatively, to “make what they want to make,” an instruction that she said results in pots incorporating family history, traditional design and Cherokee legend and language. After all, the workshop’s title comes from a Cherokee legend in which a girl tripped on a mud dauber, shattering the bucket she’d been carrying to fill with water. The mud dauber, witnessing the fall, taught her to make pottery that could also hold water. Cultural memory similarly informs the final pieces.
McCoy explained that every year, some in her class, initially unsure of themselves, are surprised by their own natural talent.
“My motto is, ‘Everybody is an artist and everything is art,’” she said.
“People think about [historical memory as] negative things being passed down. On the flip side, there’s good things and positive things that’s passed down also. And so, I see that [in pottery],” she added.
“Our people are so creative — they’re just naturally creative. You don’t even have to teach much.”
Jackson underwent such a transformation. Despite having done some shell and silver work, “I never considered myself to be an artist or anything like that,” he told SMN.
In the workshop’s early stages, he found himself overthinking tasks as far into the future as smoking the pottery.
“I had to take 10 steps back just take the information in and just let it go. ‘Okay, I get to touch clay this afternoon, so we’ll focus on that,’” he said.”
Once Jackson got into making pottery, he discovered a knack for — and a deep enjoyment of — the process. A combat veteran and director of EBCI Information Technology, he described pottery as “therapeutic,” especially because of the PTSD he carries from deployment.
“That connection back to the earth, I think, has helped me. After a stressful day or a hard day, I can go and I can take this clay, and I can mold it into something good. And if I don’t like it, I can ball it up, and I can throw it,” he said.
Plus, this medium provides respite from the mental chaos he experiences.
“My mind is normally running 90 miles on a daily basis, but when I sat down to do this, I can start at nine in the morning, and before I know it, it’s dark,” Jackson said.
It’s not only escape he craves, but also catharsis. Every piece, he said, is an opportunity to channel ideas or emotions. Finally, pottery has challenged some of Jackson’s more rigid thought patterns.
“I want things done the right way or the perfect way, and I know it’s not possible. so [pottery has] helped me come find a balance,” he said.
For example, while polishing his first work — a small cook pot with a southeastern shell and bird design — a piece cracked, and the entire side fell off. Typically, Jackson said, he’d have given up, but instead he decided to recreate the pot. His two subsequent pieces also cracked. But while the first would’ve been too fragile to survive a pit fire, the second and third — defects still present but unnoticeable post-repair — are displayed in the exhibit along with three of his other works.
The mistakes taught him to be gentle.
“I pick up my pots and I’m sitting here trying to varnish them and polish them up, and I’m pressing too hard and I cause the damage,” said Jackson, adding that mindfulness of what you’re working with is also a principle of the Kituwah people.
Class elements
Despite many in the Didanesisgi Gadagwatli cohort being natural potters, the workshop requires a significant amount of preparation. McCoy supplies students with tools, clay and food and snacks. She orders custom-made paddles.
She describes herself as “big on mentoring,” routinely inviting Mud Dauber graduates to the workshop to answer questions, help with techniques or create art alongside current students.
Credit: Donated photo
Class programming involves off-site exploration, from an archaeologist-led display of pottery shards found at Tali Tsisgwayahi (Two Sparrows), an ancient principal Cherokee town now occupied by Western Carolina University, to a local property which allows participants to dig their own clay for future projects.
“Feeling that texture and understanding the soil on the earth — And is it too dry? Is it too grainy? — those are all the things that I’m thinking, as if I was a potter,” Jackson said.
Students later get to process the clay they’ve dug. An electric kiln or pit fire is used to fire the pottery, though next year, a wood kiln will also be available, thanks to a grant written by two former students.
Inspired by the class, Jackson has built his own pit fire, as well as a double chamber fire, though he prefers the former.
“When you do a smoke fire pit fire, you’ll get the black, you’ll get the gray, you’ll get the browns, the tans, the orange, the red, whatever that clay has, you get all of those beautiful colors,” he said, adding, “I like that style. That’s Cherokee style.”