Pottery Lovers Unite
ZANESVILLE, Ohio – Each July, pottery aficionado’s from around the world flock to Zanesville’s Holiday Inn Express, where rooms are set up for pottery collectors to display the collectibles they have fallen in love with.
Pottery Lovers Vice President Patti Bourgeois is from Massachusetts and she explained how her organization coordinates the annual trek to Zanesville alongside the festivities that take place later on in the week in the nearby communities of Crooksville and Roseville.
“We all converge here. We all bring the things that we collect and sell. And I collect, I think everyone of us who sells is a collector. We started that way and it’s just an amazing journey. So I come, as I said, I think it’s 36 or 37 years now. And it’s just so much fun. And we get together, we have a whole bunch of events and the Zanesville Museum of Art is one of our major sponsors,” Bourgeois said.
Pottery products are naturally brittle and easily damaged and many of the items being displayed are at least 70-years-old, which means that they have been deliberately treasured, now, by generations of collectors.
“You can find a piece of McCoy for $10 dollars and you can find a piece for $1,200 dollars,” Bourgeois said. “So it runs the gamut. I would say more of it’s affordable than is not. I think anybody that is in their 20s to 30s and is working, there’s something that they can afford. And again, you can buy a vase for $10 dollars that was made 70 years ago, you know so. And that is whole, it holds water, they all hold water, they were made to do that. They were made to be used.”
Bourgeois encourages pottery owners who may not know what they have to stop by the show and talk with the collectors who may be able to explain the history and worth of the pottery item you have acquired.
The Pottery Lovers convention will take place Tuesday through Saturday, inside the Holiday Inn Express, located behind the Olive Garden restaurant, at 1101 Spring Street. For a schedule of the show’s events, you can visit them online.
