Hannah Burnisky runs her scoring tool along the edges of a clay slab, demonstrating for a new student at Cold Mountain Art Collective. She coaxes the clay into a cylinder, then pinches it into the shape of a four-leaf clover. “Slowly encourage the clay,” she says. “Clay doesn’t like to be forced. You have to ask it very nicely.”
The student mirrors Burnisky’s movements to form the legs of a critter. It’s meant to be a Highland cow — complete with ceramic horns, a snout, and crown fluff — but when it takes on non-bovine features, Burnisky is reassuring. “He’s supposed to be animated,” she says with a smile.
Hannah Burnisky invites Haywood County artists like Jason Pierson (right) to conduct workshops at Cold Mountain Art Collective. photograph by Stacey Van Berkel
One of the most popular experiences at Cold Mountain Art Collective is the critter class, designed for all skill levels. Within a few hours, visitors bring to life squirrels, llamas, cats, flying pigs, and any other creature of their choosing.
On the shelves above Burnisky’s wheels, afternoon light catches on the unglazed ceramics that were born here. There are bowls and mugs from locals and visitors who tried their hand at throwing during one of the studio’s workshops. There are gallery-quality pieces from traveling artists who made a pit stop in Canton. And there’s plenty of Burnisky’s signature wood-grain serveware, inspired by the hours she’s spent playing in the Pigeon River with her partner and two sons.
“A lot of the sticks and stones that I use in some of my work come from there,” she says. “It’s just the most peaceful place.”
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Burnisky opened Cold Mountain Art Collective for anyone interested in art — making it, learning it, or buying it. This is the kind of place that she imagined as a young potter working in a brick shed that faced Cold Mountain. And before that, when she took her first pottery class 15 years ago.
After graduating from high school in her native Fairview, Burnisky went to college to become an English teacher, but she found herself uninspired. A friend’s mom had taken a ceramics course, and Burnisky was amazed at what she’d created. She enrolled nearby at A-B Tech, but after the first six weeks, she couldn’t center clay on the wheel.
Burnisky knew pottery was meant for her, and she was meant for it.
Burnisky wasn’t fazed. She knew pottery was meant for her, and she was meant for it. She retook the class, and it finally clicked. She bought a wheel and moved it from apartment to apartment and eventually to her stone house in Canton, where she built a family, a business, and a community of artists seeking space to create, sell, and grow.
Opened in the town’s old ice cream parlor in 2021, Cold Mountain Art Collective serves all of these needs. Climbing up along a doorframe are brass flood markers from the four major storms the building has survived — Fred, Frances, Ivan, and, at the top, Helene — subtle reminders of the strength of this mountain community and its makers.
During “Paint Your Own Pottery” days at Cold Mountain Art Collective, participants customize blank pots (center), some of which pay homage to the building’s history as an ice cream parlor in the ’50s. photograph by Stacey Van Berkel
A few other Collective artists have led classes in the studio space, and Burnisky often joins visitors as a student herself. She’s taken classes with artists like Jason Pierson, who demonstrated fabric dyeing using rust and food scraps, and Heidi Brickhouse, who helped beginners weave a pair of fringe earrings in an introduction to beadwork.
With educational offerings that range from a five-week wheel course to afternoon hand-building classes, Burnisky is fulfilling a personal need she thought she’d given up on, too.
“I guess I have always been kind of destined to teach something,” she says, looking around the studio at the hand-thrown bowls and animated critters that were created here. Each one carries the personality of an artist — novice or experienced — who wandered in to learn.
Cold Mountain Art Collective
33 Adams Street
Canton, NC 28716
(828) 492-0103
coldmountainartcollective.com
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