Nancy has been a porcelain potter for 25 years, making dinnerware and serving pieces. She studied art at the University of Iowa, and learned the pottery trade from mentor Charles Counts.

"I learned pottery by apprenticing for 2 years with Charles Counts in 1970. After 2 more years as a journeyman potter in Maine, I settled in North Carolina and set up my own studio.  I make pottery both to meet a utilitarian need and to explore my own sense of beauty.  Porcelain is my choice of clay because its smooth, light texture offers a soothing surface for brushed or carved images. My approach to pottery is traditional. I enjoy the rhythms of throwing, the repetition of forms as they evolve, the cycles of firing, and the
slow changes brought forth through creative inspiration. My patterns and decorations evolve from natural images surrounding my mountain home."

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Lee Davis has been a production potter for 40 years, He has a long association with the John C. Campbell Folk School , where he was the first resident potter. His new studio is now in Weaverville, NC and he has been a member of SHCG since 1976.

As his work has grown and progressed, the hand thrown pottery forms have become a canvas for painting and displaying his love of drawing, depicted in the multi-layering of surface decoration. He uses slip trailing to draw on the clay form, a technique which dates to Roman antiquity. This produces a raised decorative surface. Additional decoration is applied with sumi brushes and then an over glaze is applied. After firing the result is a many textured surface with a variety of tones. The pottery is high fired, lead-free, both oven and microwave safe.

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Terry Gess is a studio potter in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. He carefully finishes his pottery with multiple layers of porcelain laminated to the surface and fires it in an atmospheric salt kiln. Although the process is challenging and somewhat unpredictable, the prized one-of-a-kind results are a subtle, expressive collaboration between the potter, the clay, and fire.  Terry was educated at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, and Penland School of Crafts. His awards are many, and his work is included in collections worldwide.

"Over the years of steadily making, decorating, and firing pots, something distinctively myself has slipped into the process. It's a sensibility as intangible and basic to me as the way in which I hold the salt shaker when I tilt it to pour, how I turn the pages of a book, or how I kick my potters wheel."

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