Decorate Your Space with Artisan Ceramics
Custom Designed Pottery by Suzie Council, locally made in North Carolina
Decorate Your Space with Artisan Ceramics
Custom Designed Pottery by Suzie Council, locally made in North Carolina
ABOUT HORSE ASS POTTERY
From wheel thrown, to hand built, to slab rolled – Horse Ass Pottery is beautifully designed. Suzie offers decorative pieces as well as functional pottery for everyday use in a variety of colors and styles.
THE NAME SAYS IT ALL
Suzie's mom is credited with getting her to take the workshop to learn how to make Horse Hair Pottery, as a homage to her Cherokee Heritage. Individual strands of tail hair from horses is placed on the pots as they come out of the kiln at 1600 degrees causing black lightening shaped patterns.
After taking her new pottery to show her family, everyone thought it would be a great idea to sell Horse Hair Pottery along with her function everyday pieces. When she commented that no one would buy anything made from a "horse's ass", the name of her pottery business was born. And thus...the name says it all. A little wine may have been consumed during this conversation but no horses were harmed during the process.
ABOUT SUZIE
Suzie relocated from Huntersville, NC to Mooresville in 2008 after finding a suitable location to set up a pottery studio in her home and an outdoor raku kiln in the backyard.
Suzie specializes in traditional wheel thrown pottery, hand built pieces, and Raku using inspiration from nature, especially from the colors and textures of the many plants and flowers grown in her yard.
She has taken a workshop under Amy Sanders to further her study of clay. After taking a horsehair workshop under Susan Miller at Winthrop College, she became hooked on horsehair pottery, including commission work for horse owners wanting a keepsake of their own horses, using their hair fired onto the custom make pottery.
She has exhibited at the Cotton Ketchie Arts Festival in Mooresville, NC in 2006, 2007, and 2008 until the Festival closed. She has exhibited at the Art on the Green in 2006 through 2019. She won Best in Show in 2007 and has won several other categories during the past several years. The Gallery Crawl in Davidson preceding the event is something she participated in 2008-2010. In the fall of 2010, she was accepted into the Lakeside Artists Studio Tour in Mooresville, NC and has participated for the last 15 years. In 2011-2015, she exhibited in the Carolina Pottery Show in Shelby, NC.
ABOUT HORSE HAIR POTTERY
Horsehair pottery originated in the 1980’s when it is believed that an Acoma Pueblo Native American bent over to remove a hot piece of pottery from her kiln. As she removed it, her fair fell against it and burned. It left behind a remarkable scored design of carbon and smoke. It believed that after her first accidental experience, she continued to experiment with other carbon based materials.
The process has now been refined to a purposeful firing of pots at high temperature and placing individual strands of horsehair or other materials onto the pots surface. This technique has evolved to using organic substances which leave interesting patterns. The materials Suzie enjoys working with are feathers, plants, horsehair, and sugar. When the pot has cooled, the carbon residue is brushed off, leaving the beautiful patterns. Some can be treated with substances to give them colors and textures. The result of this time consuming process is no two pieces she creates are ever the same.
A Showcase of Horse Ass Pottery's Unique Ceramic Pieces
