Statement from The Museum of N.C. Traditional Pottery

Date: September 25, 2008

From: The Board of Directors of the Museum of N.C. Traditional Pottery
d/b/a Seagrove Pottery Museum

To: All Potters, Artists and Craftspeople

Re: The SEAGROVE Pottery Festival


Richard Gillson created the Seagrove Pottery Festival 27 years ago and did much to help put Seagrove and its pottery industry on the map. We all serve on the board of the Museum of N.C. Traditional Pottery that produces the Seagrove Pottery Festival and our loyalties lie with keeping Richard’s vision for the Seagrove Area alive. We wanted to go on record with this statement of our support and dedication to his dreams and goal.

There is a group of potters in the Seagrove Area who have always tended to support the N.C. Pottery Center. Shortly after Richard Gillson’s untimely death, the Center was implicated in an attempt to steal the Seagrove Pottery Festival and destroy the Museum. Some of us finally took a public stand against the Pottery Center. Don Hudson, because of his intellect and personal contacts, led much of this activity. Don also became the focal point for intense personal attacks from this opposing group of potters.

We believe this decision to steal the Pottery Festival and destroy the Museum was taken last summer. Yes, that date is correct, because somebody had to make the request that the State Dept of Cultural Resources consider funding and an amount would have to have been provided in order to put it in their official budget request to take over the Pottery Center. This takes time, it could not have happened in December when the Pottery Center Board officially and publicly threw itself on the mercy of the State and requested to be taken over. We believe there was a plan already being implemented when Randolph County denied the Museum’s request for funding last year.

The N.C. Department of Cultural Resources has been the best friend of the Pottery Center. It has pushed the Center’s interests to the exclusion of many other organizations that exist to promote a public awareness of the rich pottery traditions in North Carolina. Cultural Resource’s own assessment of what the Center has accomplished was delivered in support of a request to ask the Governor’s Budget Office to include funding in its budget proposal to allow the State to take over the Center and operate it as a state agency:

“The Center has not met its potential as an educational resource or realized its goal to become a destination for heritage tourists.”

With “support” like that, who needs opposition?

However, as it turned out, the Pottery Center couldn’t give itself away! The Governor’s Budget Office declined to insert funding for a state take over in the budget proposal.

Rather than discussing substantive issues, this other group has been arguing ever since about whether Don is a bad person and whether he should be a member of the Museum’s Board. Don worked closely with Richard Gillson for almost eleven years. Shortly before his death, Richard told Don that he feared that an attempt would be made to steal the Seagrove Pottery Festival. He asked Don to fight for the festival and the Museum

It looks to us as if the folks behind the decision to kill the Museum and steal the Festival don’t really want to have a dialogue with the Museum. They would rather demonize one effective Board member and ignore the rest of us.

We wish now to give notice clearly: This will not happen. We are united in our belief that the Museum and the Festival have a future in Seagrove. We are absolutely committed to keeping Richard Gillson’s original vision for the Seagrove Area Potteries alive to serve the public by promoting all potters in the Seagrove Area equally.

If the Center could bring itself to become less elitist and more inclusive, perhaps it would have a future instead of being on the verge of extinction and we could all talk and reach a consensus that provides a place at the table for every group that promotes pottery

It would help if the Center would seek the truth about what went wrong when the Museum was told that its festival was being taken away from it and would be given to the Center. At the very least, following such an outrage, the Center must affirm the Museum’s right to exist and promise not to try to steal or hurt pottery festivals that it never created and barely supported.

There are truly important issues for the pottery community to discuss. They include:

--The future of the Center’s collection and mission if it cannot sustain itself.
--Funding and implementation for any future pottery educational activities.
--Funding and implementation to promote pottery tourism in Randolph County, the Seagrove Area and beyond.
--Coordinating the activities of the major pottery festivals in North Carolina to help promote pottery year-round and the possible creation of additional festivals.
--Resolving the on-going sniping between half a dozen of the elite potters whose work has been promoted preferentially by the Center and the greater number of potters who create the real appeal of the famous Seagrove Area Potteries.
--Keeping Richard Gillson’s dream alive of a permanent home for the Seagrove Pottery Museum in downtown Seagrove.
--Implementing the letter and intent of G. S. 145-23, defining the “Seagrove Area Potteries” by taking steps to incorporate Chatham County fully.
--Relating promotion of the unique traditions of the Seagrove Area to promoting other pottery traditions statewide, with the goal of furthering mutual interests, with or without the N.C. Pottery Center, should it continue to exist.

For the Entire Board:


Linda Loggains Phil Morgan
Board President Vice President