Many hands shaped this potter’s career decision

Matt Hallyburton ’07 grew up in Rutherford College, North Carolina, a town of 1,200 people where the Piedmont’s rolling terrain begins rising to the Blue Ridge Mountains. As a kid, he explored the woods and the water, then backpacked and hiked as a teenager.

The Catawba River flows through the area, and the valley spans several counties and adjoining areas between Hickory and Morganton. The region has a rich pottery history.

“During the 1800s and 1900s, pottery was booming in Vale, near Hickory,” Hallyburton said. “Dozens of pottery shops were there. The particular clay that comes from the Catawba River, and then the ash glaze used here and the kilns here, all lend themselves to this unique style of Catawba Valley pottery.”

For the past eight years, Hallyburton has been a full-time potter. He creates high-fired functional pottery like dinnerware in that style, while also experimenting with art pieces and new forms.

“But it was not on my radar from an early age,” he said. As a child, he was exposed to pottery by an aunt who collected pottery and took him to sales. “Maybe it was seeping into my subconscious and I didn’t know it.”

After high school, he enrolled at Carolina and majored in psychology. In his junior year, he and his aunt attended a North Carolina Museum of Art pottery exhibition of pieces from around the world. “It was eye-opening. That’s where it all started to click,” he said. There, he met Mark Hewitt, a renowned potter whose studio is in Pittsboro, near Chapel Hill.

As a senior, Hallyburton chaired a committee for the Frank Porter Graham Student Union’s permanent art collection. The group visited artists across the state, including Hewitt. They bought a 4-foot tall jar from Hewitt and exhibited it on the second floor.

Hallyburton spent time with Hewitt, learning ceramics and helping fire kilns. He took classes at the Durham Arts Council, bought a pottery wheel and built a studio at his Durham home.

But with plans to attend graduate school, he found a job related to his degree, coordinating tobacco research studies at Duke University Medical Center’s psychiatry department. He threw pieces in Durham, drove them to Rutherford College to fire in a kiln on his mother’s property, then returned for work on Monday.

Hallyburton ’07 fires much of his pieces in a wood kiln which he built at his Rutherford studio. (Submitted photo)

Friends like MJ Sharp ’07 (MFA), a former Carolina art teaching assistant, encouraged Hallyburton to become a full-time potter.

His big break came when Durham’s Piedmont restaurant placed an order. Other restaurants followed. Chef Sean Brock ordered dinnerware for three Husk locations. “I was like, ‘Well, this is happening.’ If it doesn’t work out, I can always go back to research, but I’ll give it a try,” Hallyburton said. Other chefs began collaborating with him on design and glaze. “That’s always rewarding,” he said.

Fulfilling those early large orders with a small wood kiln was challenging. Firings took hours and often required help from friends.

When back-and-forth trips became too demanding, he and his partner, Sandy, moved to Rutherford College in 2019.

He took six months off to build a large wood kiln that holds 600 pieces and a gas kiln for 60. “I felt comfortable doing it. But there’s still this, ‘Oh, my gosh, I haven’t made money in months’ feeling. When those first pots came out, I was anxious to get them out for sale,” he said.

The wood kiln is his favorite firing method. After glazes have cooled and he fires it up, flame and ash shape the final surfaces.

The quality of Hallyburton’s work and his customers’ appreciation sustain him. “The pottery tradition here is world-class. We need to keep highlighting and reinforcing it, so it won’t be lost.”