Woodruff Pottery Open House and Sale

Woodruff Pottery will hold a Holiday Open House and Sale Dec. 1-2, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., at 35 South Main Street, Watkinsville, Ga., 30677.

Artist Alice Woodruff began making pots as a high school student in 1968 and was immediately hooked by the “challenge, rhythm and the magic of wheel throwing,” she says. She studied ceramics at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine, and the Haystack Hinckley School of Crafts in Waterville, Maine.

She opened her first studio in Bogart in 1972 and was a production potter for the next 26 years, selling thousands of pots each year in craft stores, museum shops, galleries and gift markets. Her work was also exhibited in one-woman and regional art shows.

Woodruff took a break from pottery in 1995 to pursue a career as a Nurse Practitioner, working in neurosurgery and spine rehabilitation. She thought she had given up pottery, but could not stay away—she took it up again in 2004 and established two more studios and galleries. Today, she works part-time in hospice care and is “fully involved again in my first love, the creation of beautiful, functional, daily-use objects,” she says.

Woodruff combines beauty and function in  elegant cups, bowls, plates and other vessels. Nature inspires her color choices, a practice she established in Maine. Then, sky and sea, a craggy granite coastline, and the lush inland forest inspired a palette of blue, turquoise, brown, red, green and gold.

“The natural world continues to be very much an inspiration in daily life, as I go about my day gardening, walking and cycling the countryside,” she says.

While her aesthetic has endured, her approach has evolved.

“My creative focus has shifted from thousands of pots to a more select and thoughtful fewer pieces made of porcelain and stoneware clays,” she says. “I love to create the simple objects I use in the kitchen—the smooth, egg-like forms that comfort the hand; the rich depth of color of high-fired glazes; the bell-like ring of vitrified clay.  I am  still inspired by the  robin’s egg, the lichens, the stones and plants: the details and the  grand views of our living world.”

This year’s market takes place in Woodruff’s newly completed studio space. Select items will be available at reduced price.