“I have now come full circle and am excited about it. I started out teaching, retired from it for about 34 years and now I find myself back in the classroom sharing all the skills and knowledge I learned in all those years at the wheel,” the renowned North Carolina potter explains.

Joyce brings thirty years of pottery making and running a business to our program. Her real world experience in those areas are invaluable to a program who's goal is not only to make art but to prosper from it," notes Phillip Ashe, Head of the CCCC Sculpture Program.

Growing up in Philadelphia, Bryon was always an active outside girl. “I knew from the time I was in Junior High that I was going to art school,” she remembers. In her senior year at Moore School of Art in Philadelphia, she worked on a project using clay and colored glass. “That started my life-long love affair with pottery and ceramic sculpture,” Bryon asserts.

After graduation with a degree in Art Education, Bryon’s life journey took her to Alaska, where she was the US Army’s Assistant Craft Director. A move to Maine initiated her teaching career. “Limited budget meant limited clay,” she recalls. “So students and I dug clay in a local gravel pit and mixed it with purchased clay with our feet in the school parking lot. Janitors hated me!”

Teaching in New Jersey, Bryon’s career took a new direction. “While taking a kiln building workshop at Peter's Valley, I met several well known potters and some starting new careers -- like I longed to do. When I got home I told my family they had six months to get ready, because I was leaving teaching to be a full time potter." That decision ultimately brought her to Chatham County to establish Stone Crow Pottery (http://www.stone-crowpottery.com/) and become an influential member of the Chatham artist’s community. Bryon says of her work, “I have always been excited about getting my hands dirty in the clay. My mind is always active and thinking about new patterns and ideas. Because of this my work is very active with layers of pattern and texture, slip and over laid glazes. Most of my work is meant to be used, and is designed for the preparation, cooking and serving of food.”

CCCC student Faith Flowers says, “I took the intro to pottery class with Joyce. I came into the class knowing how to throw, but I left with much, much more. Joyce was able to push me out of my comfort zone and teach me to move to another level. I thought this was a very impressive thing since I was in a class with beginners who also needed her time and attention. She also taught me to move outside of my box in my glazing methods as well. When I would question the assignment or a technique she was teaching, she was always willing to listen and consider my point of view before deciding a final answer in the class.

The course work in the CCCC Sculpture Program concentrates on the development of skills in clay and metal. Emphasis is placed on hands-on training. Courses in design, pottery, metal and clay sculpture, and basic welding give students needed fundamentals in this creative art form. Additional classes provide students with training in metal casting, glaze formulation, kiln design and construction, and advanced artistic design. “What sets the CCCC program apart from other professional arts and crafts programs is the inclusion of entrepreneurial instruction that will assist in the planning, operation, and marketing of a professional craft studio and gallery,” asserts Phillip Ashe. “This program was created in response to the expanding interest in pottery, sculpture, and professional arts in the central region of North Carolina.

The Chatham Artists Guild (www.chathamartistsguild.org) is a non-profit organization of regionally and nationally recognized visual artists. Each December, Guild members open their studios to the public through the Chatham Open Studio Tour. Visitors travel throughout lovely rural Chatham County to meet artists in their own work spaces, and share their ideas on art and the creative process.


http://www.stone-crowpottery.com/

http://www.cccc.edu/