Well, it didn’t take long after my recent posting about the upcoming Celebration of Seagrove Potters festival which will take place Nov. 20 – 22, 2009, in Seagrove, NC, when I started to get e-mails from a couple of my regular non-fans about the big mistake I had made – counting potters as potteries.
In my irrational exuberance (thank you Allen Greenspan) to be a good media sponsor for the Celebration of Seagrove Potters and in trying to be too cute in making a comparison between the two festivals offered in Seagrove on the same weekend, I made the mistake of using the word “potteries” where I should have used the word “potters”. It’s a big difference.
When I made the statement – “I know there are about 100 potteries in the greater Seagrove area and 85 of them will be at the Celebration of Seagrove Potters.” I was wrong. The number 85 represents individual potters not potteries. There will be almost 60 potteries represented at the Celebration of Seagrove Potters – leaving about 40 from the Seagrove area that could be at the other festival – still less than the Celebration and almost just as many (up to 35) from somewhere else other than Seagrove attending the other festival.
So it was pointed out to me that I was full of what you can find inside a cow pie and that I was, again, being unfair to the other festival.
Well, I pointed out to my non-fans that I did mention the other festival, made a link to their website and suggested to readers that if they didn’t find what they needed at the Celebration of Seagrove Potters – they should go to the other festival – it will be right there in Seagrove. That’s more fair and balanced than FOX News. It would be kind of hard to miss the other festival in such a small community, but, that’s what you get when trying to be a good supporter to one festival and fair to the other.
I have always said to these folks who are not happy with my support of the NC Pottery Center and Seagrove potters that what I’m trying to do is get people to go to Seagrove. What they do when they get there and which potteries they go to – much less what festivals they go to – I don’t really care. It’s a free country and I think visitors will just see potteries in Seagrove and won’t be checking any guides telling which potteries are on what side of the pottery feud going on in Seagrove. (And, for the record – there is no real feud going on in Seagrove.) So every time I’m promoting Seagrove potters – I’m doing work for all Seagrove potters – except for a few.
What really has had a burr up my rear is the real problem in Seagrove and that’s the actions of a few of the organizers of the other festival – the Seagrove Pottery Festival. Don Hudson, a potter from Sanford, NC, and his side kick, Phil Morgan, a potter from Seagrove have been running their own “Tea Party” in NC – attacking potteries and potters who do not line up under their leadership, attacking the NC Pottery Center and even attacking the NC Department of Cultural Resources – for their support of the Pottery Center and Seagrove in general.
I have nothing against the other potteries and potters who participate in the Seagrove Pottery Festival – they’re just trying to make a living like the rest of us, but I cannot support a festival under the control of Hudson and Morgan – a two man wrecking crew.
So I stepped in a cow pie by making my mistake, but my grandparents ran a dairy farm back in Michigan and I’ve stepped in many a cow pie and even learned that they can be useful as a sort of frisby – good for tossing at your older brother. So I’m tossing the cow pie I stepped in back at Don Hudson and Phil Morgan and asking – What’s the deal – have you two always been jerks?
I have an idea as to what Hudson is up to. He’d like to see the reputation of Seagrove pottery dragged through the mud in favor of Sanford, NC – which presents its own pottery festival. What Morgan is up to – I’m not sure he knows, but he must like being a yes man to Hudson.
I’m going to make the corrections to my recent posting – still showing my mistakes. I’m a big boy and I can live with my mistakes, but I’ll correct them when I’m shown I was wrong – but I don’t know how Hudson and Morgan live with what damage they have caused in the last two years.
If they are ever successful in bringing down the NC Pottery Center I will do my best to make sure the art community and community in general – forever knows what these two guys did. But, I don’t think they will be successful in their quest and until that day comes – if it ever does – I’ll not mention them again or anything they are associated with. It’s what they deserve.
So in closing – make sure you go to the Celebration of Seagrove Potters in Seagrove, NC, held from Nov. 20 – 22, 2009. You’ll see lots of potters from Seagrove there – 85 of them.