16th Annual Hilltown 6 Pottery Tour and Sale

On the 4th weekend in July, nine Hilltown potters will open their studios and kilns to the public for the 16th annual Hilltown 6 Pottery Tour and Sale. Visitors will meet the potters and their guest artists. The summer tour is a great way to get out into this beautiful part of Western Massachusetts and celebrate its cultural riches. There will be educational demonstrations and hands-on activities: watch a potter turn a lump of clay into a pot, climb inside a giant wood-burning kiln, see how a ceramic artist creates a pot that looks like a stone freshly pulled from the earth. This is the country: gardens and woodsheds; the potters offer a neighborly welcome. You'd never dream how distinguished they are -- until you see the pots.

The tour has earned national recognition. Locally, it has become an annual reunion of the family of artists, customers, and pottery lovers. Easily accessible from New York, Boston, Hartford, Albany, and the Berkshires, the tour draws visitors from across the region and beyond. Visitors are always delighted by the range of ceramic expression, from favorite mugs to sculpture. This may be the 16th tour, but even in these historic hills everything is new -- as new as the next firing, the next kiln opening, or today's surprising clay (it has a mind and a body of its own.) Where the clay, the potter, the glaze and the fire meet is always new.

The Hilltown 6 will donate a portion of its proceeds to local elementary schools for art supplies.

The tour is free and open to all. Visit www.hilltown6.com to download a map, your guide to a weekend of inspiration.

Hilltown 6 is a group of well-known potters based in the Hilltowns of Western Massachusetts: Robbie Heidinger, Christy Knox, Maya Machin, Michael McCarthy, Hiroshi Nakayama, Mark Shapiro, Eric Smith, Constance Talbot, and Sam Taylor.

2022 guests include: Hayne Bayless, Ben Eberle, David Eichelberger, Justine and Grant Figura, Annette Gates, Ellen Grenadier, Jamie Guggina, Janel Jacobson, Naysan McIlhargey, Mathew Meunier, Will Swanson, Sam Staas (Intern) Ikuzi Teraki and Jeanne Bisson, Sumiyo Toribe, Jerilyn Virden, Tom White, Dallas Wooten

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