things with her hands, and eventually the desire to be a potter won out.

Avery, owner of Blue Heron Pottery, now uses lace to fashion unique looking pitchers, mugs, glasses and vases.

Her planters, an original design, are one of a kind. All of these revolve around lace, which is probably an influence from her mother’s side of the family, she says. Putting lace on pottery is not original, she explains. Textures on clay are common. But “taking it and making a production line out of it with functional ware” is.

Since it is a smaller market, however, “people don’t know what to think about it,” she says. “They look at it. I have to do a lot of talking, educating.”

Avery’s heron vessels, which are like sculpture but also functional, are also a trademark of her business. The vessels, including a glaze of apple wood ash, are more time-consuming to work on and also more expensive.

Avery sells her work at several locations – at Village Market Pottery Place in Seagrove, North Carolina, where every store is about pottery, the Cave House in Abingdon, the Alleghany Highlands Arts and Crafts Center in Clifton Forge, and at New Mountain Mercantile, which she says is her best seller. She also now has a permanent booth on the Farmers Market in Roanoke on Saturdays. She prefers not to sell out of her studio – “I’m too private a person.”

For years she spent time on the road, traveling and selling at craft fairs. Fairs were often four to five day experiences, but she says they were good times for the family. “The girls (Amy and Dolphin) grew up in craft fairs.”

Now by devoting her energy to the shops and Farmers Market, she has more time to enjoy the lifestyle she loves on her property in Floyd. The studio, the old farmhouse and her flowers are home. “I live simply and in a rural environment, and I’m basically running my own life.”

Of course, she admits, it is getting more difficult to live that kind of lifestyle. Avery came here from upstate New York, where she attended Cornell University. She and her husband arrived in the area in the late seventies. They moved into an old farmhouse in Wytheville and fixed it up in lieu of rent. “We came down here on a shoestring,” she recalls. They eventually found out about a food co-op set up in a mill in Floyd County and through that connection moved here in 1980.

“There was a wave of us, back-to-landers, that came here in the early eighties,” she comments, “and we started talking about a school.”

Those were the “seeds” of Blue Mountain School, and that parent cooperative school, a private run endeavor, continues in operation.

The food co-op eventually went private, too, and it became Harvest Moon.

Avery, who has also found her way back into the classroom as a teacher of GED preparation classes for adults, says that being in the arts and crafts business has been a good choice for her. “It’s not a good living economically. I’m right on the poverty line, but I feel incredibly wealthy.”

She says she is fortunate that her expenses are minimal. But, she adds, “one of the difficulties of this lifestyle is the world is changing.  One has to put more energy into making money to pay for things, she explains.

Avery serves on the board of the Jacksonville Center, an organization promoting the arts in Floyd County. One of the concerns now is “how to translate the work of the hands and self-employment into a workable living,” Avery notes. “We’re talking about health insurance, forming business plans and collective buying of materials.” At the present the Jacksonville Center is trying to showcase what is happening in arts and crafts in the county and promoting the artists and crafters through shows.

The idea is “to keep reinforcing that creative work,” Avery explains. “There is quality in these mountains. It is kind of hidden away. It doesn’t fit into the high tech industry.”

The Jacksonville Center “is not all about tourism,” Avery emphasizes. “Preserving the value of a person’s handiwork” is very important, she adds.

There’s a place in every community for handwork and art, Avery says. “It’s not just about making money….It’s about quality of life.”

The world appears to be going through a cultural shift, and Avery says she likes having a balance in her life now. She can enjoy her paradise as a potter and her life as a teacher.

She also enjoys the benefits of living in a small community, where business owners take the younger generation under their wings and give them work opportunities and the natives extend a welcome to the newer residents. “We have some incredible ambassadors” here, she comments. She remembers when she first arrived how Catherine Pauley, a longtime local artist and teacher, made her and other newcomers feel welcome. Avery had her first art show at the Old Church Gallery, which Pauley helped to found. “She made me feel part of the community.”