While progress on the house has come to a standstill due to several back-to-back snowstorms, it hasn't halted my desire to pull the interior design of the house together. With a desire to source locally and acquire as many of the products that go into the building of the house as possible from the USA, we have discovered a wealth of talent in the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia. One of those talented individuals would be the designer of our dinnerware, Shawn Ireland (http://penlandpottery.com/pages/home.php). We met Shawn a couple of years back during a tour of his studio in Bakersville, NC during a semiannual Studio Tour put together by the Toe River Arts Council (toeriverarts.org). We were drawn to his style of pottery for its sense of raw earthiness and use of natural colors. We came upon his dinnerware, by chance, in one of our favorite local art galleries, Lark & Key (larkandkey.com). They were having a show featuring dinnerware from several different potters while also promoting local food. We then approached Shawn during the Spruce Pine Potters' Market in October to see if he would be interested in making 6 sets. His next firing coming up shortly, he went to work and they were ready by Christmas. I just picked them up over the holidays (at the tail end of another snowstorm, may I add). They are going to be the perfect complement to a handmade dining table (story soon to follow).
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