1st Annual Arkansas Pottery Festival – Community Creative Center

May 6th, 7th, and 8th, 2022

This exciting 3 day weekend will include Pottery Demonstrations and Lecture by nationally recognized artist Bill Jones on Friday and Saturday, an exhibition and pottery sale of over 50 potters from around the State, an exhibition of Master Works from Private Ceramics Collections. A closing lecture will be given by Lawrence McElroy detailing historic pottery production in Northwest Arkansas, followed by a cookout and potluck Saturday Night. Vendor booths will include the Clay Bank, and Dickson Street Bookstore. We are also partnering with the Botanical Gardens of the Ozarks for a Flower Pot and Plant Sale Fundraiser, with a wide selection of affordable handmade planters and locally grown plants. Buy a Planter, get a free Plant for a great Mother’s Day Gift! Concurrent events will include the UARK Ceramics Student Sale and Exhibition, and tours of the Historic Cane Hill Museum.

Sunday guests are invited to meet at the Historic Cane Hill Museum at 10 a.m. for a tour, followed by a site visit to the J.D. Wilbur Kiln excavation project, a pottery dating to the mid 1800’s. Lawrence McElroy and Jared Pebworth of the Arkansas Archeological Society will present information about the historic site. Following this, tours of the University of Arkansas Museum’s extensive collection of ceramics and pottery will be given in the afternoon.

Bill Jones, Visiting Artist

Master Potter, Artist, and Lecturer

Bill Jones grew up in Bucks County, PA and studied architecture and design at Lehigh University and the University of Michigan. After a change of direction and an extended stretch in the pottery studio at Penland School of Craft, he moved to North Carolina to begin a 2 year apprenticeship in Seagrove. Bill now lives and works in Greensboro, NC where he balances his studio practice with teaching and production work.

Artist Statement:

I grew up in an old stone house and from an early age found beauty in simple articulations of material. A loosely laid stone wall, a sketch done with a finger in damp sand, the haphazard stability of a quickly erected structure. As a potter, I work with simple materials and methods in a constant attempt to channel this same beauty.

My pots are a fusion of my education in architecture and my formal training in the leach/cardew tradition of functional pottery. Old british and moravian slipware, the brutalist concrete forms of late modernist architecture, quick drawings that articulate big ideas – these are the sort of things that continue to bring me inspiration.

I thoroughly believe that to make something well, all else must be laid aside. I learned this most effectively from long hours spent learning to throw at the wheel during my apprenticeship in rural North Carolina. It was only after internalizing the traditional forms I was striving to make that I could start to breathe life into them. I now see each pot as an attempt to realize the form in my head – the fact that these attempts are never wholly successful is endlessly reassuring. The work is never done and the beauty is in the trying.

Lawrence McElroy, Cane Hill Museum Director

Men of Earth, History of Northwest Arkansas Potters

Lawrence McElroy, Guest Lecturer

Director of Arts & Curator, Historic Cane Hill Museum

Arkansas native Lawrence McElroy currently serves as the Director of Arts & Culture, and Museum Curator, for Historic Cane Hill, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of the history of western Washington County. McElroy also oversees the gallery space in Cane Hill and is responsible for gallery exhibition research, design, and installation. McElroy earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from the Memphis College of Art, and a Master of Arts degree in museum studies from Johns Hopkins University. McElroy has returned to the world of art and culture after a three-decade detour into the field of medicine.

The rich history of northwest Arkansas, and Cane Hill in particular, fuels McElroy’s passion for historical research and exhibition development. McElroy’s goal is to produce interesting and meaningful opportunities for the public that will result in long-term, positive impact.

McElroy is also an award-winning artist, working primarily in oil on canvas in the field of figurative realism, and maintains a studio in Cane Hill.