Back in the 1980s, two prominent potters put Athens, Georgia, on the map for ceramics. Ron Meyers and Michael Simon, considered among the grandfathers of American contemporary pottery, began opening their studios to the public the first weekend of every June and December in what became known as “pottery sale weekend.” Over the decades the sales became legendary. Lines of collectors and hobbyists would coil out the doors; pots sold out in minutes. The stories hold that some even camped out the night before to secure their pots, which are still seen on kitchen shelves all over Athens.
It’s been years since Meyers, who is in his nineties, and Simon, who died in 2021, have held their biannual sales, but Athens maintains a mighty reputation as a clay town, and a recent crop of talent has fired up the tradition again. Six full-time, nationally recognized potters living in and around Athens banded together to create the Athens Clay Trail, a free, self-guided annual tour of their studios that takes visitors from the heart of Athens to the quaint town of Comer to the rolling hills of Oconee County (find a map of the studios on the website). The trail draws inspiration from Athens’s history as a clay mecca as well as the global tradition of community celebrations around kiln openings, when a new big batch of finished work is unloaded. The new tour, which took place the first weekend in June, revived the early summer sales of famed potters past.
“It’s a special thing to be able to visit with six working clay artists in their own studios in and around a small town,” says Courtney Hamill, one of the organizers of the trail who relocated her ceramics business, Honeycomb Studio, from Atlanta to a farm outside of Athens in 2024, in large part for the robust clay community. “We all created new work for the sale, and we got the opportunity to connect personally with collectors.”
When she landed in Athens, Hamill got to know local potters Maria Dondero and Lori Breedlove, whose work she had admired, and the trail was formed around a shared appreciation of the local pottery culture that preceded them.
“There’s something really, really special about Athens pots,” says Dondero, who studied under Ron Meyers and was deeply inspired by his work. “They’re loose, the clay is shown in its soft element, there’s lots of imagery, and there’s something really alive and fresh about the work.”
The six potters on the trail have their own distinct styles and hail from all parts of the country, but they’re all in Athens for the same reason: a tradition of clay. Any time of year, their wares are worth discovering.
In the bucolic outskirts of Athens, Shawn Ireland lives and works in the former home and studio of Ron Meyers himself, surrounded by rambling gardens and woodlands. He first took a class with Meyers in 1993 at the Penland School of Craft in Western North Carolina, where Ireland was a longtime resident. “I never imagined I’d eventually end up working in his amazing studio,” he says. Inspired by folk pottery and known for the earthy zoological shapes he calls “animalware” (like a black stag vase and a swan snack tray), he has exhibited in juried shows like the Smithsonian Craft Show and Philadelphia Museum Show. He says he always works with “food, flowers, and candles in mind.”
You may have seen Hamill’s porcelain home ware—vases, platters, Christmas ornaments, and more, often accented in 22-karat gold—stocked at West Elm or Liberty of London. In 2024 she relocated her Atlanta-based ceramics business, Honeycomb Studio, to a former horse farm in Bogart, just outside of Athens, to focus more on one-of-a-kind collector’s pieces. “I was seeking out a more communal artistic experience, and Athens was an obvious choice,” she says. “I was drawn to the rich community of potters in Athens who were living and working here.” Her clean, contemporary take on the folk-art face jug is her latest obsession.
For Dondero, whose family owns the Athens lunch and catering spot Donderos’ Kitchen, pottery has always been a partner for food. “I’ve always loved the connection of eating and creating the table,” says Dondero, who founded Marmalade Pottery in 2009. Her tabletop pieces play with form and “break outside of the round,” as seen in her hexagonal plates, scalloped snack dishes, and big rectangular platters. Her work is distinguished by repeating patterns—florals, animalia, faces—and gestural strokes, often inspired by the work of her mentor, Ron Meyers. Dondero founded the community pottery collective Southern Star Studio in a circa-1900 house near downtown Athens, where she rents space to local ceramicists and teaches classes and workshops; she also co-founded the Tuscan Clay Lab in Cortona, Italy, where she spends some months out of the year. “I just love that there’s this family tree of pottery and tradition in Athens,” she says.
Meunier, who relocated to Georgia in 2023 after apprenticing in western Massachusetts and working as an artist-in-residence at the Kansas City Clay Guild, has toured with pottery trails across the country. Along with Dondero, he was recently invited to exhibit as a guest potter in Minnesota’s famed St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour. “It is definitely a reference point in the pottery world and for us starting a tour,” says Meunier, whose soda-fired earthenware takes shape with smooth angles and geometry, of the St. Croix event. His home and studio are tucked in downtown Comer, just east of Athens.
A few blocks from Mathew Meunier, Homann’s studio and shop fronts the main historic downtown strip in Comer, alongside the bustling Comer Coffee Company. After decades working as a full-time potter in California and Vermont, Homann relocated to Georgia in 2014. Homann’s ash-glazed stoneware, both rustic and elevated, is created for everyday use, from food to flowers, though it can be found in fine art galleries across the country. Look for pieces made with locally dug Georgia red clay.
Breedlove fires up her porcelain clay forms from her studio, Rose Creek Pottery, from a barn on a Watkinsville farm at the county’s high point, with views of the surrounding countryside. Her functional pieces often feature layered glazing or patterns formed naturally in the wood-fired kiln. An avid gardener inspired by the farmland around her, Breedlove has recently been turning out basketlike vases for cut flowers. Once a ceramics student of Dondero’s at the University of Georgia, she also draws heavily on the work of Michael Simon. “I’m constantly learning new things and getting new ideas from our clay community,” she says. “As a potter, it’s fun to work together on something as a group since we are almost always working alone in the studio.”
Find information on shopping and studio appointments on the artists’ websites.
