The Village Potters Clay Center reopens after Helene
When Sarah Wells Rolland, founding president of The Village Potters Clay Center, left her Haywood County home days after Hurricane Helene, she already knew what she would find in the River Arts District.
Still, standing on a high ridge in West Asheville with dozens of onlookers, the sight stole her breath. Riverview Station — home to the center since 2011 — sat stoic, its 19th-century brick walls and fresh white roof intact. But the parking lot churned with muddy water, debris piled against the building, and neighboring structures were simply gone.
“I have experienced a lot of loss in my life,” she recalls. “What I experienced standing there on the ridge that day was an unwelcome but too familiar feeling: shock, disbelief, and numbness.”
Helene took nearly everything: 14,000 square feet of studios and classrooms, 17 kilns, 37 wheels, a clay supply company, and countless pieces of handcrafted pottery. But what the storm didn’t wash away was the community that had grown around the center.
In the weeks to follow, volunteers arrived daily, wading through muck to salvage what they could. Friends offered storage, donated clay, and raised funds. Potter Kelsey Schissel of Plays in Mud Pottery in West Asheville opened her own studio to displaced artists, crowding her space with extra wheels and worktables.
Support poured in from far beyond Asheville, too. Donations and grants from across the country reached $300,000. Rolland herself traveled to nine states, offering workshops whose proceeds went entirely to recovery.
“We discovered we have a national village all over the U.S., and that village is bringing The Village Potters back,” she says. “It’s a miracle.”
Still, the search for a new home was grueling. “Finding a space that was large enough, centrally located, had ample parking, and was not in the flood plain appeared impossible,” says Rolland.
Months passed without a viable option. Then came a miracle: an 18,000-square-foot space on Westgate Parkway.
Walking through the doors for the first time, Rolland felt bittersweet certainty. “The new space confirmed…that our life in the RAD was over,” she says, “but I held that emotional space alongside the excitement that coming back may be possible.”
On October 11, The Village Potters Clay Center will reopen in the new building, bigger and stronger than ever. The enhanced facility offers affordable studios for storm-displaced potters, robust educational programs for all skill levels, and a fully equipped clay and tool supply distributorship.
For Rolland, this journey has been nothing short of transformational.
“I am in the process of being recreated, centered, stretched, pulled, trimmed, and slow-dried,” she says. “I know I am still in the fire. But what emerges after everything cools down is something transformed, something stronger, more beautiful.”
The Village Potters Clay Center’s grand reopening celebration will be held Saturday, Oct. 11, 4-8pm, at 44 Westgate Parkway, Asheville. See thevillagepotters.com.
Talk about tenacious! A true potter speaking about fire…not just mud.
I wish you all the best and look forward to sharing your new space.
In the town of Old Fort (over the mountain to the east) a little gallery of many artists and artisans was starting to make the turn financially when Helene came calling and wiped out all the the studios and the gallery itself. The same strong mountain people came together and were able the risk moving across the street. The gallery has twice the space and is amazing. If you meander east, please visit The Arrowhead Gallery and Studios.
Blessed be!
“Congratulations” doesn’t begin to express how your hope and resilience is shining through all your tragedy and trauma. I wish I could be there on October 11 but you know my love and support. Village Potters Clay Center is a shining example of how people can rise up from disaster because of the strength of community, of partnerships, had work, and love for the artistic creative life. What a transformation!
Anne Lythgoe, OP, Columbus, OH