Pot Stuff

Vernon and Pam focus on traditional salt-glazed stoneware pitchers, pots, jars and candlesticks. Some 100 pieces were lined up like soldiers waiting to be fired. Pam crawled in and out of the 12-foot kiln on her hands and knees, arranging the pots according to size, glaze and her instinctive liking. Loading the kiln would take six hours.

Stacked nearby were slabs of oak, pine, poplar and hickory to feed the fire. It would be tended nonstop for 10 to 12 hours -- in this case, all night. When the kiln reaches a certain temperature, salt is introduced. The salt immediately vaporizes, flies through the chamber and attaches itself to the silica in the clay, producing a natural blue, brown or gray glaze. The popular frogskin finish is achieved by coating the unfired pots with what's called an Albany glaze, which turns an uneven green when fired and salted.

Jugtown originally was owned by Jacques and Juliana Busbee of Raleigh, who are credited with reviving the Seagrove potteries in the 1920s by hiring local potters and promoting their wares in New York. The next 50 years saw a decline, but by the mid-'70s there was a renewed interest in handcrafted items. Some credit the Bicentennial and its celebration of Americana with turning Seagrove into the successful artisan community it is today.

Vernon still makes the Oriental-style pots and bowls whose shapes were researched and introduced to local potters by Jacques Busbee. His large pots start with a 20-pound block of clay that he works up in two sections. They sell for between $300 and $500. "A lot can go wrong with a pot that big," said Vernon. "It looks deceptively simple."

Most items, however, sell for between $15 and $50. The museum, with its collection of old Jugtown pottery and photographs of the area's early kilns and craftsmen at work, is worth a tour -- and it's free.

White Oak Gallery: High-Tech and Stylish

Benjamin Burns and his Great White Oak Gallery are as high-tech as Jugtown is rustic. Track lighting, modern displays, carpeted floor and striking copper red sushi dishes made me think we had walked into a gallery in Miami Beach, which is where Burns once lived and sold real estate, rather than a showroom in Seagrove.

Trained at the Ceramic League of Miami, he opened his studio in 1997 in a shingled Victorian house whose modest exterior -- except for the pink flamingo -- belies its renovated interior and exciting stoneware designs.

"Hurricane Andrew made me rethink my life," Burns said. "I am a real corporate dropout. I earn my entire income from pottery."

Cool Japanese elegance is evident in about 30 different wheel-thrown styles. Rich red plates and bowls are bordered with a swirled metallic rim that gives the impression of enamelware, not stoneware. His celadon collection has a hakame slip decoration so delicate it appears to float above the surface. "I am greatly influenced by classic Eastern design," he said. His glazes require precise control and his gas kilns are small, the size of a commercial washing machine. Dinner plates are $40, individual sushi plates $32, two-cup sake sets $45.

Next to his own designs, Burns displays works of other Seagrove potters, including many traditional pieces. He reels off potters' names and directions to their studios, eager to have visitors see the diversity of styles Seagrove offers.

"Each piece is an expression of the creator's experience, training, imagination. I like what other potters are doing. There is a strong sense of community here."

Westmoore Pottery: Colonial Redware

There's a strong sense of history at Westmoore Pottery. Mary and David Farrell specialize in wheel-thrown utilitarian pieces, including 17th-, 18th- and 19th-century redware replicas. In fact, their showroom, smelling of wood smoke on this spring day, looks like a Colonial kitchen with its large open hearth, long wooden tables and old cupboards filled with kitchenware. The couple built the studio and their timber home themselves while raising two sons and working as full-time potters.