The Sanford Pottery Festival
The Sanford Pottery Festival is the largest pottery event in North Carolina and certainly the largest event of it's kind within the readership of this magazine. While the main emphasis is on North Carolina and "Seagrove"
pottery, the Festival accepts potters from all over the country and has had exhibitors come from as far away as Washington State. The show features well known potters both regional and national and hosts over one hundred and twenty unique artists.
North Carolina is a state known world wide for it's pottery with the town of Seagrove and the Seagrove area being the national pottery capitol, but the term "Seagrove Pottery" is an all encompassing phrase referring to potters of a five county area that includes Chatham, Lee, Moore, Montgomery and Randolph Counties, Randolf County being home of the actual town of Seagrove, and also home of the Seagrove Pottery Festival, the "original" pottery Festival in North Carolina. The town of Seagrove is recognized as the birthplace of traditional North Carolina Pottery. It turns out that the Sanford Pottery Festival has it's roots in Seagrove through Richard Gillson, the driving force and inspiration behind both Festivals.
Gillson died in a tragic accident in January of this year after a fall from a ladder but his vision still lives in both festivals and many other pottery promoting endeavors started under his leadership. The upcoming Sanford Pottery Festival is paying tribute to Gillson because he did more than any other person to promote pottery in the heart of North Carolina.
While pottery fans sometimes somethings think there is a rivalry between the older Seagrove Festival and the newer Sanford Pottery Festival, they were designed originally by Gillson and Sanford Pottery Festival creator Don Hudson to compliment each other. The Seagrove Festival caters exclusively to Seagrove Area potters while the Sanford event was designed to take all qualified clay artisans with emphasis on Seagrove area potters. Both festivals have benefited from mutual cooperation by sharing information and advice throughout the years, and according to Don Hudson, the Sanford event would have never come into being without the visionary ideas of potter Richard Gillson.
In addition to creating the twenty-seven year old Seavgrove Pottery Festival, Gillon and Hudson also worked
to create the extraordinary pottery exhibit featured at the yearly State Fair in Raleigh, an all encompassing showcase designed to promote both festivals and regional and state potters. The State Fair exhibit has become so important that it has drawn attention of Raleigh lawmakers who have approached fellow members to encourage expansion of the annual display. Gillson created the Seagrove Pottery Festival 27 years ago and was the major in the creation of the Sanford Pottery Festival.The story behind the story of the two evens if one of of cooperation for the benefit of all, potters, pottery collectors and art aficianos. Since the beginning of the Sanford Festival, Seagrove show has grown significantly since the Sanford festival and this years Sanford festival will celebrate the life and legacy of Richard Gillson at the same time that it seeks to help raise funds to keep his vision of a permanent home for the Museum in downtown Seagrove.
Gillsons death leaves a great void in the pottery community and places many local pottery arts endeavors in
jeopardy, according to Hudson, who says that no matter what amount of work it took "Richard somehow got it done, with money, time, community support, whatever". Gillsons efforts include securing real estate and
financing for the Museum of North Carolina Traditional Pottery in Seagvove, which is now open to showcase the work of potters from all over the Seagrove area, the survival of which is now complicated by the death of it's visionary founder.
In keeping Gillson's vision the Sanford Pottery Festival was originally envisioned as a way of bringing one of the states traditional arts closer to the Triangle area of North Carolina utilizing it's proximity to Chapel Hill and Raleigh and the roads that connect the area to Sanford which has the thoroughfare of Highway 421 and is roughly forty five minutes from Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Durham and less than an hour from Greensboro, all major metropolitan areas bringing thousands of out of town art fans who also sometimes tour the entire town of Sanford. In Historic Downtown Sanford, visitors encounter fine brick buildings and unique shops. Extensive promotion usually brings between ten and fifteen thousand attendees to the event, most living outside Lee County. This year's featured potter is Phil Morgan who began college as a business major but "walked through the wrong door" into a pottery studio and after time became an artist. Now along with his wife Julia they produce fine hand turned porcelain enriched with unique crystalline glazes. In addition to featured artists at the Sanford Pottery Festival you can find traditional and contemporary clay creations in extraordinary variety. Each booth seems overflowing with one of a kind creations that are turned on a traditional wheel, hand built, carved clay sculptures and some done in techniques that can't be readily identified but are nonetheless extraordinary. Pottery fans know glazes and it's rare to find more beautifully finished pieces and colors than at the Sanford Pottery Festival. Traditional brown clay colored face jugs are just next door to avant guide colored bowls and large art items with detailed paintings with both traditional and modern motifs. Talking about glazes is a favorite pastime of those who collect pottery but it's rare that a potter will give up the formula to unique glaze recipes since it can often take thousands of hours of experimenting and years trying the right combinations to create that "special something" that makes a potters art their own. You can also see the unique vision of each potter in the way pottery items are created one at a time by hand. People interested in pottery will be amazed at the extensive selection and extraordinary artistic expertise displayed by the world finest clay artisans when attending the Sanford Pottery Festival. The festival is a great family event for all,and because of it's date near Mothers Day, it's especially a great day to show Mom how much she appreciated. Don Hudson, the festivals creator quips "Your mother gave you birth, the least you can do is give her pottery", and adds "Maybe money can't buy love, but you can invest in brownie points".