Liz Thomas
Co-Editor
Commons Photo by Liz Thomas

Handmade wind chimes and café tables adorn the central courtyard. Skylights offer natural lighting for private and class studios. Shelves in the glaze-mixing room hold recycled baby food jars with masking tape labels. For the last five years, The Clay Centre has been a refuge for artistic expression and therapy.

The Clay Centre offers a creative outlet for Carrboro’s novice and experienced potters. Barbara Higgins built the center in 2002 because she discovered a need for a clay working facility in the community.

“Realtors, doctors, teachers, law students. We attract all types of people here,” Higgins said.

Currently the 40 students at The Clay Centre vary in age from 15 to 75. Located at 402 Lloyd St., The Clay Centre is within walking distance of Weaver Street.

New students must take at least one class to learn how to use the equipment. Advanced adult students can work independently whenever classes are not in session or they can rent their own studio room. Since The Clay Centre is always open for adult students, they can use the facilities at 4 a.m. to pound frustrations into a slab of clay. According to Higgins, those who travel far or have hectic schedules need the clay therapy most.

“Graduate students are always so miserable, so I like to give them a break,” Higgins said.

High school and university students use The Clay Centre to build their art portfolios, but most students of The Clay Centre use the facilities for personal expression regardless of level of training.

Don Stewart, a student of pinch pottery, comes to The Clay Centre because he enjoys using such a forgiving medium. Most students use the wheel to create symmetrical work, but pinch pottery’s method of kneading and pinching forms into the clay allows for the artist to easily make drastic changes.

“I’ve been coming here off and on for three years, but I wouldn’t call myself a real pottery person,” Stewart says.

Martha Hamblin from Mebane works raku firing with the new outdoor kiln. The Orange County Arts Commission awarded a grant for the kiln to The Clay Centre to work with crystalline glazes. Raku firing involves placing clay directly from a hot kiln into a barrel of combustible material like newspaper. The paper ignites leaving random oxidation patches in the glaze.

“They say when it comes out, it’s either like Christmas or Halloween. You never know if it will come out the way you wanted it to,” Hamblin said.

Higgins attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for her bachelor’s degree in political science, and continued with her master’s degree at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. Although Higgins never took a pottery class in college, she decided to study pottery at North Carolina’s Penland School of Crafts. Higgins and her husband, also a UNC-CH graduate, then decided to come back to Carrboro to start a family.

“It was a good time for a transition,” Higgins said “Carrboro has been a great home for my kids. My daughter just graduated from UNC, and my son actually lives next door to the Center. He’s a Web designer for many Carrboro establishments.”

Higgins discovered the lot in 2001. She bought the lumber storage land from Fitch Lumber Company.

“I remember driving by, seeing how perfect the sunlight was,” Higgins said.

Higgins worked with Carrboro architect Jack Haggerty to create a contemporary Asian design for The Clay Centre. Even if students choose to work in the solitude of a private studio, all the doors face an outdoor courtyard so the area has a sense of connection.

“I feel a wonderful sense of community here. It’s a support group that’s more fun than traditional therapy,” Hamblin said.

Visit http://claycentre.com/ to learn more about class offerings.