About the Show
The 50th Annual Pottery Show & Sale (also known as the Old Church Pottery Show & Sale) is a nationally-renowned event among the clay community, and a destination for close to 1,000 pottery enthusiasts each year.
The 2024 show is coming to you once again in person, and will feature more than 2,000 handmade pieces–from functional mugs, dishware, servers, and casseroles to sculptural works.
The event offers an opportunity to view an incredible collection of work, as well as meet and talk with these master artists.
All pieces on exhibit are available for purchase, and all proceeds benefit The Art School at Old Church, a non-profit arts center.
Our History
The Old Church Pottery Show & Sale began in 1975 as a fundraiser for The Art School at Old Church (TASOC). Long-time friends Karen Karnes and TASOC founder Mikhail Zakin wanted to connect their vibrant community of potters with the local area and offer the opportunity to purchase one-of-a-kind works of art, all while supporting the newly-established cultural center. The show has become a model for other shows of its kind and has grown to include 30 national and international artists, offering more than 3,000 pots for sale over its three-day span.
Karen Karnes (left), Mikhail Zakin (right)
For more than forty years, Karen Karnes curated the Old Church Pottery Show. On July 12, 2016, Karen died peacefully in her home in Vermont at the age of 90. Karen was an innovator, progressive thinker, mentor, and a dear friend. Her salt- and wood-fired pots set a new standard for the possibilities of studio pottery, and she will be missed by all who knew her. The Pottery Show lives on in her memory in honor of everything we loved about her—her forthright manner, indelible wit, her devotion to ceramics, and her legacy.
Dates
Friday, December 6th
Saturday, December 7th
Sunday, December 8th
2024 Curators
In 2014, artists Bruce Dehnert and Chris Gustin joined Karen to collaborate on the selection of artists for the 2014, 2015, and 2016 shows. The 2024 Pottery Show & Sale is curated again by Chris Gustin, Bruce Dehnert, and Aysha Peltz. The current team of curators continues Karnes’ and Zakin’s tradition of collaborating on the selection of artists, and, through this relationship, forging an aesthetic language that will inspire generations of potters to come.
About the Curators
Bruce Dehnert Before receiving an MFA in ceramics at Alfred University, Bruce Dehnert studied English as an undergraduate. He continues to cultivate a written life that weaves together his creative outlook with the nitty gritty of ceramic art creation. Bruce celebrates the pottery process from kiln construction to dining room table. His treatment of form and surface before firing often inform how to interact with the piece after it is fired. Bruce has been published in journals including Studio Potter, Ceramics Monthly, and Ceramics: Art and Perception. He recently collaborated on Simon Leach's Pottery Handbook praised as "an amazingly detailed, step-by-step text for all major processes in ceramics." He is currently the Director of Ceramics at Sugar Maples Center For Creative Arts, Catskill Mountain Foundation in New York.
Chris Gustin In 1975, Chris entered the MFA program at Alfred University, where he studied under storied faculty members Randall, Turner, Cushing, Hepburn, and Higby. During his second year at Alfred, Chris met Karen Karnes and was immediately drawn to her fiery character and the seriousness with which she approached her work and the business around it. Her approach was inspirational to him as he began to make plans for life after school. Shortly after, Chris moved to Guilford, Connecticut and opened his first professional studio. In 1986, Gustin collaborated with Margaret Griggs, George Mason, and Lynn Duryea to form Watershed Center For The Ceramic Arts in an abandoned brick factory in Newcastle, ME. Their vision was to create a place for clay artists to live and work in community that nurtures the evolution of artistic practice. Following his early successes, Chris was invited to join the faculty at The Program In Artisanry at Boston University which later through many transformations, became part of UMass Dartmouth, now one of the top ceramics programs in the nation. In 1999, Chris retired to a full-time studio practice in South Dartmouth where he lives with his wife, artist Nancy Train-Smith.
Aysha Peltz Aysha Peltz’s pottery explores imagined space, scale and the poetic properties of the ceramic medium. She is a studio potter and faculty at Bennington College in Vermont. She received her BFA and MFA from Alfred University. She has taught at a number of schools and art centers including: Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Peter’s Valley, Alfred University and the Kansas City Art Institute. Peltz was awarded an Emerging Artist Award at the National Council for the Education of the Ceramic Arts. Her work is in many collections including: the American Museum of Ceramic Art, The Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art, Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, and the Huntington Museum of Art, where she received Walter Gropius Master Award.