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S T O R Y B Y
Meganne Fabrcga
Portsmouth,
NH:
A Harbor
for Craft
For most New Englanders November is the
start of their long winter hibernation, but
for craftspeople in Portsmouth, on New
Hampshire’s 18-mile sliver of Atlantic
Coast, it’s time to open the doors of their
studios and homes to welcome their neigh-
bors, friends and visitors from throughout
New England. The festivities begin with
the Portsmouth Holiday Arts Tour—an inti-
mate look into the home and work lives
of area artisans.
Potters Maureen Mills and Steve Zoldak
created the tour nine years ago to showcase
the work of local craftspeople, many of
them nationally recognized for outstanding
work in their discipline. “We wanted to
emphasize to the community that there are
artists living and working in their neighbor-
hoods, just like there were 300 years ago,”
says Zoldak. “I still find odd bits and pieces
from a blacksmith who used to live some-
where near our property.” When they’re
not traveling the country or working on
other projects (Lark Books recently pub-
lished Mills’s
Surface Design for Ceramics
),
it’s a short commute for Mills and Zoldak
to the kiln and glaze studio in their back-
yard, where they use an old-world slip trail
technique on stoneware to create functional
pottery. They spend the summer season
selling their wares in their shop at Ports-
mouth’s Strawbery Banke Museum—a
complex of restored houses and gardens—
honoring a centuries-old tradition of craft
commerce in that neighborhood.
Strawbery Banke is not only a link to the
past; it was also a starting point for many
local craftspeople. Peter Happny, a black-
smith, first went to Strawbery Banke to
068 american craft dec/jan io
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