Explore 30 Miles of Handmade Pottery
Posted on 03/29/21by
Crafts of all types have enjoyed a recent resurgence, especially pottery. The South is home to one of the country’s most famous and deep-rooted centers for potters and their works: the tiny hamlet of Seagrove in central North Carolina. Dating from the 1700s, when Indigenous peoples and then the colonists used the ideally suited red clay to create vessels of all types, the town has evolved into one of the country’s largest pottery communities. Most of these artists are heavily concentrated along a swath of countryside called the North Carolina Pottery Highway — all centered on a nearly 30-mile span on Highway 705.
Roughly 90 studios and shops spread across the highway, and many of them are in the artisans’ homes — each just minutes away from one other. The enclave is often called “Jugtown” for its output of oversized jugs created with human features.
