Discover and Celebrate the
Bliss of the Artists and Artisans
of the Toe River Valley: Burnsville

Click on each of the following links to learn
more about the amazing Toe River area:

Toe River Artists: Bakersville
Toe River Artists: Celo
Toe River Artists: Penland
Toe River Artists: Spruce Pine
Toe River Galleries & Tours
Toe River Dining
Toe River Art & Craft Schools, Workshops
Where to Stay in the Toe River area
What to See and Do in the Toe River area

Artists and Artist's Studios of the
Burnsville Area of the Toe River Valley (including Micaville)

Brooms and Boxes
Richard Moore and Carol Doswell Moore. Brooms and boxes in the Shaker tradition.

Elk Fork Studios
Linda MacMichael and Tim Clark... fiber artists, musician, artisan bakers.

Energy Exchange Craft Studios
Pottery and Glass Blowing Studio and Gallery. This is a fascinating 'incubator' project which utilizes land-fill gases in their kilns and ovens.
"... The EnergyXchange Incubator program was established to support entrepreneurs in starting, managing and operating new businesses in the crafts of glass blowing and pottery. Craft Residencies are available to potters and glassblowers, who are competitively selected by media-specific juries for the opportunity to work in group studios on the site at a nominal cost.Participants in the program may stay as long as three years and receive training in business practices from HandMade in America, Inc. and Mayland Community College. The clay kiln and glass furnaces are fired with landfill gas at no additional cost to the residents with a projected savings over the life of the project estimated at over two million dollars...." Gallery open daily, check website for hours. Can also be seen during the twice-a-year TRAC Studio Tour

Hokanson - Dix Glass Studio and Boar Glass
Both studio glass and production line.
Dix says: "... Over the last several years, my work has focused on transforming functional, domestic objects such as combs, purses and quilts into to objects that are personifications of these objects' users or the materials used to construct the forms. My work combines blown and cast glass with materials such as metal, steel wool, natural fibers, fur, and wood..." Example above.
Hokanson says: "... my work has been inspired by industrial objects and forms in nature. I fabricate organic, abstract reproductions of these industrial objects out of new materials such as blown and cast glass, steel, carved wood, cast metals and found objects. I accentuate the surface qualities of these materials, incorporating their tactile properties with the respective forms. I often recreate the surface of one media (for example burned wood) in another (cast glass)...." Example to right
About Boar Glass "... Boar Glass studio was founded by Bengt Hokanson and Trefny Dix in 1996. The studio was originally established to create custom architectural projects and the artists' personal sculpture. Their studio has evolved to produce a line of blown glass vessels, one of a kind blown glass sculptural forms and one of a kind painted vessels. This work has been influenced by world textiles, urban graffiti, Japanese block prints, landscapes and undersea life forms. Bengt and Trefny use a combination of traditional Swedish and Italian glass blowing techniques as well as experimental techniques as needed to create their work. Bengt and Trefny's blown glass pieces are an exploration of pure color relationships and the forms that emphasize the colors movement throughout the piece..." Exhibit in a number of galleries nationwide.

Michael Kline - Okra Pottery Studio
"... Michael has been a studio potter since 1993. He studied pottery, painting, and printmaking at the University of Tennessee from 1983-1986 and holds a BFA. He also studied under Michael Simon at the Penland School of Crafts in 1989. After teaching pottery at the Westside YMCA in New York City from 1986-1989 he joined Mark Shapiro in Worthington , MA and built a studio and kiln at Stonepool Pottery. In 1993 Michael began his Okra Pottery Studio. He designed and created wood fired-salt glazed tableware with a botanical theme in Massachusetts until 1998 when he was awarded a Resident Artist position at the Penland School of Crafts. While at Penland Michael developed a body of work in translucent porcelain. In addition to the porcelain work Michael developed a body of larger scale stoneware pottery inspired by the traditional stoneware of the Catawba Valley and Seagrove areas of North Carolina. At the end of his tenure as Resident Artist Michael designed a kiln to fire his new body of stoneware. The kiln is designed to fire exclusively with edgings and remainder wood from local sawmills and is large enough to fire his large scale pottery as well his tableware. The kiln is fired five times a year. The pottery features botanical themes, glass runs, and alkaline ash glaze....." Michael Kline can be found at the Mint Museum's annual "Potters Market Invitational ". Check his blog: Sawdust and Dirt where he generously shares photos of exactly how he throws his pots.

Linda McFarling -
Bolens Creek Pottery
My aim as a funtional potter is making pots that honor the rich traditions of the past, while hopefully adding to them. I am currently working with several diferent clay bodies, fired in a salt-soda kiln. I restrict myself to a few slips and glazes. I find myself very inspired as well as challenged working within these confines. It allows me an intimacy and interaction throughout the whole process. My primary interest has always been in form. I want my work to show a strength and freshness from the making throughout the firing. I prefer to work in a style that lets one pot tell me what to do with the next. Each kiln load, while yielding exciting new pots. Also give me invaluable information for further refinement. Slow. Steady. Always evolving. My whole purpose in making pots is to share the joy I derive from this incredible creative process with the user." You can see McFarlings pots during the twice a year TRAC studio tours.

Michael Rutkowsky - Pond Branch Pottery
".... Since 1979 Reduction fired  stoneware designed and handmade solely by Michael Rutkowsky at Pond Branch Pottery. Mixing clay and glazes by his own formula and combining the materials with his personal techniques to create functional stoneware with contemporary appeal.... Now I am slip and glaze trailing on glazed and unglazed pots combining colored slips with celadons and applying slips and glazes with my fingers to achieve muliple layers of varying colors...." Pond Branch Pottery is located on Cane Branch Road 1 1/2 miles off 19E between Burnsville and Spruce Pine. The studio and gallery are open daily..."You can also see Rutkowsky's stoneware at the TRAC galleries and during the twice a year TRAC studio tours.

Selena Glass and Metal: Deana Blanchard and Chuck Young
"Through collaborative design, we want to achieve pieces which convey the happiness we feel about the world and its processes. We hope that our body of work reflects the lightness, playfulness, and exuberance of life through the interplay of line, color, and light. Our wish is to fabricate pieces which will tickle the eye now and for years to come ... Stained glass work is a joint effort for Deana Blanchard and Chuck Young, who have also been married since 1984. Deana has been a professional glass artist since 1978, and Chuck since 1984. After moving to the mountains of North Carolina from Boulder, Colorado, Deana began doing lampworking, using Pyrex rods and a oxygen/ propane torch to make small glass objects, while Chuck does metal work to create frames for large free-standing glass pieces that he and Deana design...." You can see Selena Glass at the TRAC galleries and during the twice a year TRAC studio tours.

Ila R. Seltzer
".... I recently read about how a flower is the enlightenment of a plant. It is what the plant is becoming. It is a transformation. We recognize ourselves and our own 'becoming' in the flower and that is why we are drawn to it. With a blossoming of the spirit we are being transformed. When we look at the beauty of nature we become caught up in the present moment and are fully alive. This appreciation of nature, and how it affects the spirit, is what my work is about. In the expression of these ideas, familiar images from nature are used, such as leaves, flowers, and petals, and then transformed via the creative process. By taking a small element of a plant and repeating it over and over, or by exaggerating its form, or by making a tiny petal huge - this makes us see these beautiful things in a new way - as if it is the first time. They then become unique and meaningful. The materials used are also transformed in the process. Flat fabrics become undulating, sensual, three-dimensional forms. Thread and beads become color and texture. And each new piece of art becomes more than the last. The varying processes used in my sculptures are dying and painting fabric, hand construction and hand beading, machine decorative stitching and construction, fabrication of wire supports, design and pattern making. I have developed my own unique techniques to produce the internal vision of my sculpture. You can see Ila's wall sculptures at the TRAC galleries and during the twice a year TRAC studio tours.

Matt Willig
"...I have always been intrigued by contrasts and the tensions and relationships between them. My work incorporates many different techniques, textures shapes, energies, and materials. I feel it reflects my fascination with the interplay between elements that creates visual tension, feelings of imbalance and movement. Using different colored golds, silver, stones, and found objects, I try to create a harmony of disparate images. Some of my current work incorporates design elements as functional mechanisms integrating the work more directly with the wearer...." You can see Matt's wall sculptures at the TRAC galleries and during the twice a year TRAC studio tours.

Click on each of the dozens of categories to the left to uncover what makes the Asheville area so vital, so intriguing and so, well, UTTERLY BLISSFUL!

Wood and Fine Furniture

Ira Kohn - Fine Woodworking
"... Ira Kohn's experience with hand crafted furniture spans almost forty years. He was first introduced to the craft by his father and his first jobs included carpentry and cabinetwork. His passion for traditional woodworking began in 1985 when he attended a workshop on greenwood chair making given by Madison County chair maker, Drew Langsner.'I want to create something to pass on, not make it slick just to meet what society expects. The chairs that I make are my way of paying homage to the generations of mountain chair makers that have preceded me.' Although chairs are a staple of Ira's woodworking business, he also builds original and Shaker-inspired cabinets, tables, beds and other furniture. Ira uses only solid woods in his custom furniture, especially recycled chestnut and poplar, along with traditional dovetail and mortise and tenon joinery.... He has worked as exhibits curator for the Kentucky Museum and as an artisan for the Museum of Florida History. His work has been exhibited in galleries in North Carolina, Florida and Georgia. When he is not working with wood he enjoys playing old-time banjo and fiddle, tending his organic garden and acing crossword puzzles...." Work can be seen at his studio and during the twice a year TRAC Studio Tour.