Folk Pottery Museum

We made a little trip north today, somewhat defiant of all the rain we've had.  Hurricane Delta has sent plenty of rain this way, bands or waves of heavy storms designed to soak us this weekend.  We didn't encounter any huge rainfall on our drive north, rather just some of that nuisance rain.  But we made it to Folk Pottery Museum in Sautee, and it was actually a really nice destination today. 

The museum had many different samples of pottery, and some of them were quite old, dating back to the 1800's.  Many of them were from White County, from an area that was less than a mile from where I lived for years.

Nana and Mommy enjoyed the visit, reading the descriptions of each piece, learning about the artists and the history of pottery in North Georgia.

There were some ugly faces too.  These aren't the typical ugly faces, but they certainly weren't what you'd call "attractive faces" either.  This piece was pretty odd, in fact.  Here's something that appears a little more "normal" instead:

These roosters were more elaborate, and given enough time, you can easily tell one artist from another.  Again, we were not that far from the Meaders pottery, and that's the one we're more familiar with.  It appears as if the mom was the creative one of the bunch, as we liked her pieces quite a bit.

Madison is seen here, taking a seat in the area at the front.  You can see examples of the pottery all around, and the general layout of the place as well.  It was comfortable and quiet, and a very pleasant place to visit.

Ah, here's an ugly face.  They had a few mirrors there where you can make your own version of an ugly face on some pottery, so I had to give it a try of course.

Here's the pottery I was talking about earlier, something a little more decorative.  Arie Meaders had an artistic influence that inspired the next generation of potters, adding more ornate to their creations.  

We sat down to watch a video about the potter's experience, and it was fascinating.  Starting with the clay, in fact, which wasn't bought at a craft store.  They dug for it, and that's just amazing already.  I wouldn't be able to tell you where to dig - I'd just go find a craft store!  Anyway, the entire process was shown in a pretty dated movie that featured some of the original Meaders family members.  They made about twenty-five per day, and it is quite the process.  The way they made the glaze was super interesting, and then of course the kiln was there, ready to fire up.  I actually remember seeing that kiln as a kid.

Ah, here's an ugly face.  Without a nose.  Perhaps that's why he looks so upset.  I'm not sure who or why this one is, but there were plenty of faces here at the museum.  It was of great relief to here Mr. Meaders express in his own voice how ugly some of these faces are.  Apparently making them ugly was the goal, and that was a point of confusion for me early on, as in my younger days I thought that was rather rude to call them ugly faces, even though they were in fact ugly faces.  Now I know it's okay to call them ugly faces, because that was the idea!

The windows to the rainy day outside merge with this setting indoors.  There were plenty of recreations of some of the areas of the potter, including a workshop that we could check out with a potter's wheel.

I actually love this face here, and this picture.  It's like this guy is surprised about something in a good way.  I can almost hear him shouting out, "Boo-yah!"  

And here's a nicer piece with a church on the front.  Some of these were quite old.  Nana and Mommy made their way through all the pieces, as Madison and I wandered around behind them, looking at all there was to see.

Here's the workshop, and to the center right you can see the potter's wheel.  Things were set up in a way to show how pottery used to be made.  Nowadays, there are plenty of shortcuts to be taken, but these potters refuse to do things differently, sticking to a process that has been handed down from generation to generation.  

Here's Madison early on in the museum, posing in front of a wall of pottery.  Of course, we're all wearing masks, even though we were pretty much the only ones here today.  There are also markings on the floor, arrows and so forth to help guide people along while keeping them socially distant.  Again, we were the only ones there for a while, so there wasn't anything to be concerned about.

Unless these guys attacked.  Seriously, these were ugly faces!

We looked through the other museum that was attached to this one, a history museum of sorts.  We've walked through that one before recently when we came up here for a concert.  But Nana and Mommy enjoyed looking at some of the dated material there, learning about the first gold rush in White County, and seeing the students of the earliest school there in Sautee Nacoochee.

Afterwards, we were at the Old Sautee Store, which has been around a really long time.  We were there for the unique candy and sodas.  There are plenty of other things there, which we had a pleasant time looking around at.

The front of the store is somewhat like a picture of what the store would have looked like over a hundred years ago.  Time does go by quickly.  This store looks like it had quite a bit of variety.  And right nearby was an old music box that played something lively for just a quarter.

Madison put the quarter in, and music filled the store, piano and the xylophone there as well.  You can watch the notes get hit as the instrument plays.

We stopped at Unicoi Lake after this, opting to drive around a little bit with Nana in the car.  We went over to the old covered bridge there at Sautee, but didn't take any pictures, because the Sautee Covered bridge is covered in graffiti.  But the stop there along Unicoi Lake was nice.  Madison took this one picture above, and the next two.  There was a railway and stairs down to the lake, where we went down to see if there was any view.

Madison was clearly more fascinated with the stairs themselves.  It was a gloomy, overcast day, so the lighting for this sort of things was exactly right.  The pictures came out well!

Of course, we were there at the lake, so we snapped a few pictures there as well.  I haven't been here in a while, but growing up, Ye-Ye and Nana used to take us to the lake all the time to go swimming.  

At the other end of the lake, on the way to Anna Ruby Falls, there was a beach we'd go to, a place where there was sand and of course the lake itself.  We'd all go swimming there, and if we were adventurous, we'd swim out to the dock there.  Or we'd use a paddle boat.  You can see the view in the picture above and below, how colorful the leaves are right now.  Also, you can see how the skies are lightening up a bit.  The rain would come in waves throughout the day, and this was a break in the system.  More rain would come, but it was nice for the moment.

The colors are starting to show too. We'll probably head up again soon, next time just to take look at the fall foliage.  Speaking of which, here's another picture Madison took.  I think this one below was from the Old Sautee Store.

So we got home again, and enjoyed another free dinner from our friends.  We've had different families and people blessing us with dinners that are okay for Mommy to eat, and it has been such a wonderful thing.  There was ice cream too, and that was nice for Madison!  

We had tons of rain tonight, and there were tornado warnings in the area, but we were okay where we were.  Mommy was making a utility belt for Dawn's character tomorrow at Kidpak.  You'll see that soon enough.  Also, Madison and I were playing this new game we bought for seventy-four cents.

We were both alien space ships beaming up people.  Or blasting them.  I couldn't tell which was which.  Aliens are so misunderstood.  Anyway, it was a retro looking game with a retro looking topic, and when I saw it for under a dollar, I bought it.  Yep.

Tonight's seasonal movie was "Hocus Pocus," which of course we've seen a squillion times so far.  We even watched online the Magic Kingdom appearance of the Sanderson Sisters, something we saw a few years ago in person.  The recording was nice, bringing back a few memories of the Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.

We read tonight, and got to bed a little later.  We prayed, and are thankful for another good day today.  Things sort of turn quickly with Nana, but today was a nice day with some very good memories together.