My name is Caroline Renée Woolard and my pottery studio was destroyed in the floods from Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina where a large portion of the River Arts District was completely wiped out.
Prior to the flood, I worked as a full time resident potter at The Village Potters Clay Center in Asheville, NC where I also taught beginner wheel classes and mentored advanced studies students. We had a thriving gallery in the area that was also underwater and destroyed along with our teaching center and resident working studios.
Resident studio spaces - where my private studio was:
Riverview station building where our facility and my studio was located circled in red - my studio on the ground level fully submerged:
I also had a small studio upstairs where I did private reiki energy work sessions that also got flooded and destroyed all my materials for my healing work, including my massage table.
I have made the hard decision that I need to leave the area and I have housing secured near Charlotte, NC with a very special and generous friend while I regroup and go back to school. I have been interested in attending massage therapy school for many years, but have never had the space in my schedule. I applied and got accepted into a program in 2020, but I ultimately decided to take the more risky route and fully go for my dream of being a full-time artist. While the past 4 years have had many challenges, including the pandemic and the sudden unexpected passing of my dad, I am so grateful for the years I was able to enjoy as a full time artist as it allowed me to grow so much as a human. I am especially grateful for the community I found at The Village Potters and how much I have learned there. I have had the honor of teaching so many others the healing benefits of working with clay, just as it has healed me through an eating disorder and the heavy grief of losing a parent unexpectedly. I have no doubt I will find ways to continue teaching clay soon in the future.
I have applied for the NC School of Advanced Body Work in Charlotte, NC, and will begin classes in November this year, 2024. Once completing school, my goal is to do more healing body work for others while returning to clay at least part time to create more stability for myself. I am not sure yet if I will be moving back to Asheville in the future, it is hard to see that far ahead, but I will most certainly visit with and support my beloved artist community there as often as I can. I do know that I will be reestablishing a working pottery studio for myself and creating pottery again. It may look very different depending on what type of kilns I have access to, but I am evolving and so should my work. Some pieces of pottery were recovered intact from the flood and I hope to have enough energy to do an online sale with those cleaned up around the holidays.
So many of you have already donated funds to my venmo/paypal to help me through this hard time - THANK YOU! You have helped me already raise 5k and support me in getting basic needs met during this catastrophe, cover expenses of moving to a safe location, and put a deposit down on my tuition for school. I have tried to respond as much as I can to your messages, but please forgive me if I miss anything during this time and know that I love and appreciate you. I was encouraged to make this page to share my goals, post updates, and make it easier to share.
My request for funding here is to support me in covering the rest of my tuition for this special clinical massage program I am going into, and to help me get the materials and equipment I need to restart making pottery. Potters will tell you - our craft is expensive! Any funds not going directly to my tuition will be placed in a high yield savings account until I am ready to purchase what I need to make pottery again. My pottery wheel and a few basic tools were thankfully saved, but there will be many materials I will need to repurchase to start creating again.
I am so grateful for any amount you are willing to offer, even small ones add up and help me reach the goal. If you've already donated (thank you again!) or are unable at to at this time, please help me by sharing!
This time of year would be peak season for us artists in making money to get us through the winter, but instead, our spaces were destroyed. I believe in the power of rebirth after a big loss such as this. Thank you for helping me birth a new beginning. Please support our area any way you can during this time, especially if you typically travel to this area during the fall or anytime. Please send that energy and financial resources to the community to help rebuild. It is an understatement to say I am heartbroken not only for our artist community but for the larger Appalachian area as a whole as so many have lost so much, including loved ones.
My working studio before the flood:
I had just fired a large batch of horsehair pottery before the flood and lost them all - enjoy their beauty through the photographs! There were pumpkins and other larger forms also that the photo format here is not friendly for, but I will post the images on my Instagram .
To see more of my work - follow me on Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/carolinereneepottery/
If you are a potter or a human who wants a gentle movement class for your body, you can also support me by purchasing my "Self Care For Potters - Gentle Reset " class which is a movement practice that can be done anywhere with just standing room, a chair and some sort of strap. I made this class very accessible for all bodies! If you have taken a workshop at The Village Potters with Sarah, this is the routine that we did together mid week to help you reset and stretch out your body!
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