Seagrove, Candor, Ether and Level Cross - a Southern Fourth of July
July 4 we drove down to Seagrove, NC - where all of the pottery shops are. What a lovely expedition into another art form. We went to several places but my favorites were Art Pottery and Turn & Burn.
We wandered through Art Pottery (go down 220, turn left on Main once you get to Seagrove proper, 1 block on the left) and were just amazed. The artists are a married couple and they do a wide variety of work. Some of it is pure art (statues and the like) and among those, many of them seemed overtly pagan (fertility goddesses, phallic symbols). And some tended toward the practical (plates and so forth). All of it was extremely well-done, museum-quality - I’d have taken home several pieces. I tend to “flit” in stores like that, going from this to that, this to that, squealing with delight. It annoys Ken, but alerted the artist to our presence, and when I’d flitted accidentally into the doorway of his studio he grinned at me.
Fred was working on four enormous pottery birds. By enormous, I mean they were almost as big as he was! He took a break from his work to talk with us, and we found him to be a delightful guy. We chatted about everything from the birds (destined for the Greensboro parks system) to lawnmowing (he’s got a big front yard, he and Ken talked shop about men-stuff) to how to do transfers onto the pottery (his wife does a technique similar to a gel-medium transfer onto a lot of her work, he was very interested that I recognized how it was done.) He even took time to share with us about the science, as well as the art, behind being a potter. His eyes lit up and the passion of the artist - and scientist - was evident. He was fascinating to talk to, and we’d love to get to know him better!
Then we went to Turn & Burn. The atmosphere struck me as soon as I walked in - “this is something quite different” - and then the owner’s wife offered me a cup of water. She didn’t have to do it in Jesus’ name, I knew that was how it was being offered. 
I struck up a conversation and found David and Deborah, and the other young man in the shop (who perhaps was their son?) to be absolutely delightful, caring and sweet folks.
Not only that, their pottery is the best I’ve seen anywhere. They have an assortment - some of it is purely “art/whimsy”, but most of it us functional art. They carry everything from coffee cups to dinner plates to vases to jewelry to - well, you name it! and yet they’ve taken a simple coffee cup and turned it into an extraordinary work of art. It would be a *delight* to drink out of one of these cups every morning, and one of these days soon when I’ve got the cash I’m going to head down to purchase a set.
They have several unique finishing techniques at T&B (hope that’s the right term?) - salt glazing and horse-hair being two. Most people will have seen the nubbly-bubbly salt finish on pottery before, but the horse-hair - I’ve only seen that in museums! They had many items with this technique done to it. What they do is fire the pot “white”, and then lay horse hair on it in rare, random patterns at 1600 degrees. It fries brown marks into the pot. The effect of these occasional brown lines overlapping is just … incredible. My words are so inadequate to describe how this looks - I wanted a couple THOUSAND bucks to spend, re-outfitting my house, believe me.
After we left, Ken and I drove down to Candor. It’s about 20 minutes further down the road. If you go, turn on 211 and and go out to the Farmer’s Market. We spent a while chatting it up with the old farmers out there, too. Ken learned some things about fertilizer, and we bought excellent peaches, plums, cantelope, watermelon.
On the way home, we stopped in Ether at Floyd’s General Store. If you *ever* have the opportunity to go here - GO! What a fabulous little piece of history. It was established at the turn of the century, and it’s a well-preserved country store - offers hardware, food, candy, housewares, soda… have yourself a hand-dipped ice cream cone and play some checkers.
We ate our dinner at American Roadhouse in Asheboro… a favorite haunt. We tried the seafood dinner for two ($19.99) which gives you two tremendous plates of flounder, popcorn shrimp, scallops, oysters, and a fried crab, with choice of potato and slaw. That was enough food for dinner, plus lunch the next day - and we’re both big eaters. Not to mention that was the best flounder I’ve had since I lived up north. I don’t know where it came from but it was fresh, cooked *right*, and I nearly fainted with pleasure when I took a bite. My compliments to the chef. We highly recommend American Roadhouse for a variety of reasons, by the way - good food, good prices, good service, AND good variety. If you’re looking for something off-beat, they’re it- gator, ostrich, frog legs… and lots of normal. Burgers, chicken, seafood, steak. We can feed the four of us including tip “extravantly” for $60, “cheaply” for $35-40 there.
And lastly, of course, we went to the boom-booms (that’s what our dog calls the fireworks. Ask her, she’ll tell you! She loves them.) We had a FAST fireworks show this year because it was threatening rain - and sure enough, within seconds of the finale it began to pour. However, for such a teeny-tiny town (1100?) Level Cross’s Volunteer Fire Department puts on a better show than Greensboro or High Point! We’re proud of our town and our Fire Dept, and really enjoy going to the fireworks here. I guess others are catching on that the display is great because the whole town and then some turned out! They were having a hard time parking everyone!
A good day, indeed.
So if you’re ever in NC, do go to Seagrove, and Candor, and to American Roadhouse… and even to Level Cross. It’s a rather nice little town, there’s more in it than the fireworks (well, not much, but a little bit 
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