When it comes to clay and pottery in Western North Carolina and greater Southern Appalachia, the epitome of creativity, camaraderie, and candor is Joe Frank McKee.
“I love promoting clay,” McKee said. “More clay is used for art therapy and so many more things than just making pots. They even use high-temperature ceramic tiles for space shuttles.”
Taking place each November, the WNC Pottery Festival, which was originally in Dillsboro, has been held in Bridge Park in Sylva in recent years. It will once again overtake the park on Nov. 7. With dozens of vendors and countless pottery lovers and the curious alike descending upon the event, it has become one of the marquee fall arts and crafts dates in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“Potters are a tight-knit network of friends,” McKee said. “And [the festival] is that common thread for people on what they want to make, what they want to do, and how you can just light somebody up to have a good experience.”
Launched in 2005, the festival itself has become the stuff of legend.
“We wanted to give Western North Carolina an opportunity to showcase their potters,” McKee noted modestly. “We just wanted to establish something here.”
With thousands of spectators attending the one-day festival, it’s a place where imagination, ingenuity, and innovation collide in this organized chaos of malleable materials and the human spirit. Especially when it comes to the pinnacle of the festival, the “North Carolina Throwdown” (formerly the “Clay Olympics”), where potters compete against each other in front of a live audience.
During the throwdown, potters are given certain obstacles to overcome, including setting the potter’s wheel in reverse to shake up the competitors and see just what might come to fruition. “If the pots are flowing and everything is clicking?” McKee said. “You just keep moving.”
For McKee, his genuine love and passion for pottery first emerged while in college. Initially, he was an architect engineering major. But then, by chance and happenstance, McKee switched schools and found himself in a ceramics class.
“I was hooked. I could understand [pottery],” McKee said. “And I was very fortunate that my instructor owned a gallery and did art shows.”
By having a professor not only skilled in making pottery, but also well-versed in how to market and sell one’s wares, McKee absorbed the ideal skillset to create honestly and to run a business efficiently. “We learned to make functional pots, but he taught it from a standpoint of making a living doing it,” McKee said. “And after graduation, I opened a gallery.”
Throwing clay since 1990, McKee is approaching 40 years immersed in a craft and a business at the heart of who he is, with Jackson County being his home and studio for many years. “It all just ‘harmonizes,’ I guess that would be the word,” McKee said. “You don’t hear it, but there’s rhythms all around you.”
When asked what that “in the zone” space is like while in the midst of taking a lump of clay and conjuring a piece of artistic beauty, whether it be alone in the studio setting or doing a live demonstration, McKee chuckled.
“The firing process is always a spiritual moment,” McKee said. “With the throwing part of it, you’re just so wrapped in it. When it’s right, when it’s smooth as silk? Nothing else matters.”
Editor’s Note: The story was brought to you through a partnership between The Smoky Mountain News and the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area. Located in Asheville, the BRNHA is a beloved nonprofit organization focused on the preservation and perpetuation of the rich, vibrant art and culture in Western North Carolina. These two entities are responsible for the Craft Trails magazine, an annual publication that will hit newsstands in the coming weeks. SMN and the BRNHA also publish the annual Down the Road magazine, which covers the extensive musical history and scene in our region, and is released each spring at MerleFest. Both publications are free (print/online). For more information, visit blueridgeheritage.com.