![](https://ashevillemade.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Melissa-Weiss-Portrait-1-Photo-by-Rachel-Pressley-RZ-688x1024.jpg)
Melissa Weiss in a brief moment of relaxation.
Portrait by Rachel Pressley
Potter Melissa Weiss wanted to do film-based photographic art, so she attended the School of Visual Arts in New York and earned a BFA in photography in 2000. But her career plans went south right after she graduated, because photography went digital. “I lost interest immediately,” she recalls. “It was such a useless degree to me.” Then Weiss literally went South — and that journey eventually landed her in Asheville, where she’s been a full-time studio potter for the last eight years, using laboriously hand-dug clay, traditional ash and shino glazes, and various decorating techniques — including wax resist and inlay work — to make custom, functional pots and vessels. Not even her mugs are production pieces.
How did you become a ceramicist?
I took my first pottery class when I was 30. I was waiting tables and started selling a few pots. After a while I was selling more pots and was down to waiting tables just one night a week, so finally I applied to all these craft shows. I made it a vacation, traveling across the country, and it was successful, so I never had to go back to having a [traditional] job again.
I work really hard, but so much is timing and luck, and I have such a supportive partner. …. I dig my own clay off land I own in Arkansas, and processing it is so hard, but he helps do all the behind-the-scenes stuff.
How’d a WNC potter wind up using Arkansas clay?
I used to work blueberries in Maine, migrant work, and then go to Massachusetts and work at the Ocean Spray cranberry factory. Twelve hours a day, seven days a week, living in a tent in the woods behind the factory in October and November, always cold and wet. Friends I met at the cranberry factory said, “Land’s cheap in Arkansas,” so we drove out and I bought 25 acres for less than my kiln cost. After I became a potter, I brought some [clay] back to test, and I’ve used it ever since. I go out once a year and dig 2,000 pounds of it.
You bought the land without knowing you would later become a potter?
I had no idea. It was just all very serendipitous.
![](https://ashevillemade.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Weiss-Art-2-RZ-1024x1024.jpg)
Did you even realize the land had clay on it?
Oh, we realized it because the clay made it so we couldn’t drive up our road. But I didn’t think about clay as ceramics. It didn’t even cross my mind.
It hasn’t gotten that much easier — all your pieces, including the mugs and tumblers, are one-offs, right?
Everything is one of a kind. … The catalyst for moving to mostly hand building [from wheel throwing] was three hand and wrist surgeries … but I just prefer that method of making now. The wheel makes things too perfect for me. I like the intuitiveness that comes with hand building [a pot] … the fact that it will never be a perfect round thing.
What have you been making lately?
I have a large body of work that’s bigger pots, and I recently started painting, which is fun. I’m making ceramic picture frames with original paintings in them.
Melissa Weiss, Asheville. For studio appointments, e-mail melissa@melissaweisspottery.com. For more information, see melissaweisspottery.com and on Instagram (@melissaweisspottery). Weiss will vend at the Big Crafty, happening Sunday, July 11, 12-7pm, at Pack Square Park in downtown Asheville. www.thebigcrafty.com.