Travel Guides
Pottery Itinerary for the Seagrove Area -- Stop 5 Original Owens Pottery
Make a left out of the Westmoore Pottery parking lot, and follow Busbee Road for about another two miles. The Original Owens Pottery is at 3728 Busbee Road, on your left.
The next two stops on the tour are potteries owned and operated by the children of the late M. L. Owens, a North Carolina Folk Heritage Award winner and one of the modern legends in the Seagrove tradition. (M. L. Owens’ children and Ben Owen III are second cousins, descended from brothers James and Rufus Owen, respectively, turn-of-the-century potters.)
The Original Owens Pottery is across the road from the homeplace where M. L. grew up. (The old house is no longer standing.) M. L.’s father James first established his pottery here in 1917. The showroom is located in a small log cabin, and an extensive complex of sheds behind it houses the wheels, glazes, kilns, drying racks, clay mills, and other equipment. Nancy Owens Brewer and Boyd Owens, M. L.’s youngest children, make excellent production pottery here, primarily utilitarian dinnerware.
Photo: Pots ready to glaze and fire, Original Owens Pottery; photo by Sarah Bryan;pots by M. L. Owens, photo by Tom Jackson.
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