a haven
Nestled in the Blue Ridge mountains of western North Carolina, Township10 offers artists, writers and art professionals an intimate, private retreat to deepen their creative practice.
The property, formerly the home of East Fork Pottery, has a restored farmhouse, a newly-constructed bunkhouse, an open pavilion, a broken-down tobacco barn, and generous studio facilities with a focus on ceramics.
More than a collection of structures, this green mountain cove has a spirit and a presence that invites contemplation, making, and aliveness.
Township10 is reserved for artists and writers to dream into and cultivate what they need from a residency.
T10 values
We believe in empowering artists
We embrace the complexity & strangeness of art practice
We extend shelter from external pressure & distraction
Yes to connecting with source
Yes to cultivating inner life
Yes to other ways of knowing
We encourage the intimacy of gathering & shared meals
We see poetry as vital
We make introductions & initiate conversations
We support new conceptual frameworks in ceramics
We align with those who are challenging existing hierarchies
We hold deep admiration for those who teach, mentor, disrupt, & lead
We adore this corner of North Carolina & its craft histories
Founder
Marjorie Dial
Township10 is the vision of Marjorie Dial, a studio artist whose practice includes ceramic sculpture, print-making, and writing. Dial grew up in Columbia, SC and now calls Portland, OR home. She received a MFA in Craft from Oregon College of Art and Craft.
Dial develops works through research that includes psychology, poetry and spiritual practices. Her interest lies in creating markers and ritual objects that function on a psychological level.
Township10 extends and embodies her commitment to art practice and community––the intimacy of it, the intensity, the transformational qualities.
Click here for interview on the project.
Advisors
We are grateful for the support and guidance of this incredible group.
Brett Binford is a Portland based ceramic artist and serial entrepreneur dedicated to the advancement of ceramic arts. He co-founded Mudshark Studios, Kept Goods, Clay Street, and Eutectic Gallery. He currently acts as Mudshark’s CEO and Eutectic Gallery’s curator. Brett serves as Exhibitions Director on the board of NCECA and is Vice President of Portland Art Dealers Association (PADA).
Betsy Redelman Diaz is a potter, writer, filmmaker, and sculpture professor with a socially engaged and research-based practice. She teaches studio-seminar courses at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University as faculty in the Sculpture Department. Betsy received her MFA in Craft from the Oregon College of Art and Craft, Portland, Oregon.
Leah Leitson is an internationally recognized studio potter and professor of ceramics at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. She received an MFA in ceramics from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA and a BFA from New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred, New York.
Namita Gupta Wiggers is a writer, curator, and educator based in Portland, OR. Wiggers is the Program Director of the Master of Arts in Critical Craft Studies at Warren Wilson College, North Carolina and the Director and Co-Founder of Critical Craft Forum. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.
Matt Jones, a native to the Carolinas, studied ceramics at Earlham College and apprenticed for two and a half years at Todd Piker's Cornwall Bridge Pottery in Cornwall, CT. He worked with Mark Hewitt before setting up shop in the Big Sandy Mush valley, Buncombe County in 1998. Jones engages poetics, narrative, and politics in his vessel work and is known for sparking lively, provocative dialogues in the ceramics community.
Marilyn Zapf is the Assistant Director and Curator at the Center for Craft, a national 501(c)3 non-profit in headquartered in Asheville, NC. She recently curated the nationally-travelling Michael Sherrill Retrospective, which opened at The Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC) in 2018. Marilyn is a Trustee of the American Craft Council and holds an MA in the history of design from the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.