Quarantine ignites pottery sales at Spring City gallery BY CHRISTI BABBITT
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the cancellation of events that usually attracted people to his Spring City gallery, potter Joe Bennion was concerned his sales would plummet like they did during the recession of the late 2000s. “What I didn’t see coming was #quarantinesourdough,” Bennion said. Bennion, owner of Horseshoe Mountain Pottery, specializes in what he calls “utilitarian pottery,” or pottery made to be used. “I make pottery for the home, which generally means food,” he said. “A vase is as close as I get to making something that’s made to be looked at and not used.” Bennion makes cups, bowls, plates and other kitchen items — including his bread baker, a bowl with a lid used for baking artisan loaves. In mid-March, when the virus quarantine began, Bennion started noticing pictures on social media of bread being created with his bread baker. Recognizing a potential demand, Bennion made a couple of dozen bread bakers, then posted on Facebook a date and time when they’d be ready for purchase at his gallery. Within 3 days, they were all sold. He made more, and they sold. The bread bakers are leading his sales, but other pottery items are being purchased as well. “I’m seeing two to three times the volume of business that I’m used to this time of year,” Bennion said. The success of this simple marketing on social media illustrates the different approaches Bennion has utilized over the years in his longtime pottery business. He and his wife, Lee Udall Bennion, purchased their first home in Spring City three weeks after their marriage in 1977. They had discovered the town while on their honeymoon; it looked like the town they both wished they had grown up in. Bennion had been studying to be a school teacher, but by the time they moved to Spring City, his wife had convinced him to pursue pottery as his vocation. “She recognized that education was getting me really uptight and rubbing me the wrong way, and she said, ‘I don’t want to spend my life with somebody who’s frustrated and unhappy,’” Bennion said. Bennion changed his major and went on to earn a master of fine arts degree. Meanwhile, he made pottery in a chicken coop behind his home until the couple sold their house and purchased another in town as well as an old store front on Main Street that had been empty for decades. “I knew by then that I needed a Main Street
Spring City Potter Joe Bennion, Horseshoe Mountain Pottery, has seen his business explode since the Coronavirus hit in March. People are staying home and baking lots of bread. He makes a bread baker that has a lid used to make artisan loaves. Bennion specializes in “utilitarian pottery”, which is made to be used. His storefront can be found at 278 South Main, Spring City. (Photo courtesy of Nick Bayless)
June 17, 2020
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