Potters Market at the Mint
September 26, 2026
Parmentier Pottery, Mars Hill NC
Hand built stoneware vessels using coils and slabs. Each vessel altered and carved. Ash glazes fired in a reduction atmosphere to cone 10.
Jim and Shirl Parmentier have worked as a team of collaborative potters for the last 45 years. We are basically self taught and have developed our own unique style that has made our work stand out and easily recognized. For the last 13 years we have lived in the mountains of Madison County in Western North Carolina where our studio is just a short walk from our home. This allows us to completely immerse ourselves in our work without any outside interference.
We use a cone 10 hand building stoneware clay that is a custom mix that we developed many years ago. Each design that we make is first drawn out to develop a piece that has a pleasing form. As we are designing the form we are also thinking ahead about the carving and how the glaze will flow into the carving. We use a custom built extruder that extrudes our slabs and coils to make them more compressed and strong. This allows us to build the larger pieces. We each design our own pieces. We then work at prepping the slabs, cutting, scoring and stiffening the clay until it’s ready to be assembled. After assembly, the piece is put aside to become leather hard so it can be carved smoothly. Carving is a major part of the process. Each design is well thought out to fit the lines of the piece and to work with the flow of the glaze. Many of the carving designs need to be measured out and kept uniform and others have more of a free flow to them. Every part of the piece is completely hand carved.
The glazing process involves many steps from hand painting certain parts of the piece with glaze, waxing over that and then glazing the entire piece. This adds color and vibrancy and dimension to the work. The work is then fired in a car kiln in a mild reduction atmosphere to cone 10.
Our biggest inspiration is the current and past work that we have made. When our work is shown at a show or in a gallery it has a very cohesive look to it and we strive to keep that.