Description
“Integrating the way I experience the world with the way I design and create functional pottery is essential to my creativity. Whether rinsing garden tomatoes at the kitchen sink, or pausing to study wildflowers along the trail, I believe in taking time to notice the little details of life. I am just as awed by the way a leaf connects to its stem, as I am the folds of a mountain range or bursts of clouds at sunset. I always view these things with an eye toward conserving and celebrating the environment that I live in. My work bears the mark of these values, resulting in uniquely designed pottery that is just as inviting to ponder and touch as it is to use and share.” -Joy Tanner
ARTIST INFO
Joy Tanner – Bakersville, NC
After a childhood full of music lessons and exploring the natural world while growing up in eastern Tennessee, Joy Tanner redirected her creative focus when she discovered clay in college in 2000. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Ceramics at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She then pursued a Resident Artist position at the Odyssey Center for the Ceramic Arts in Asheville, North Carolina. In 2007 Joy established her own clay studio near Penland School of Crafts in Bakersville, North Carolina. Immersing herself in the beautiful mountains has greatly inspired her work and her life. Reflections of detail and pattern are a distinctive element within Joy’s pottery, and she enjoys getting deep into the creative process with such a responsive material as clay. In the summer of 2010, she was awarded a summer residency at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine where she concentrated on making one of her favorite ewer forms. Joy was also a Resident Artist at the EnergyXChange in Burnsville, North Carolina. She is a member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild, Piedmont Craftsmen, and the Toe River Arts Council and exhibits her work in regional and national galleries. In 2013, she and her husband William Baker, established their own studio, Wood Song Pottery in a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains in Bakersville, NC. Joy and Will love to call this place home along with their little girl and their fluffy golden retriever.
