Michelle Flowers currently owns and operates MD Flowers Pottery of Burke County, NC and also owned & operated the Cat's Meow Pottery of Seagrove, NC until 1996. She began making pottery in 1991 while attending Freedom High School in Morganton, NC and built her first wood kiln in 1993. After a failed firing, and shortly before graduation, she visited Charles Lisk at his pottery in Vale, NC to meet a real potter. Lisk gave her a chunk of hand dug clay and said this is how you learn, by turning.


She then moved to Seagrove, NC to apprentice, and turn with several potters there including Nell Cole Graves of JB Cole Pottery, Charles Tostoe of Fat Beagle Pottery, and Terry, Anna & Crystal King of King's Pottery, and many other potters working in and near the U.S. Pottery Capitol. After a few years of working as a journeyman potter turning piecework for the Seagrove Potteries and her shop, the Cat's Meow Pottery, she returned to Morganton, NC. Upon her return, she designed and built a second wood kiln and began selling her wares at various craft shows and gallery events throughout NC.


Her style evolved to more traditional forms and glazes following the Traditional Catawba Valley Wood Fired Pottery. Today, she digs her own clay, fires in wood kilns, and uses traditional NC methods of pottery making. In addition to the traditional pottery she also explores other pottery making techniques such as Japanese Raku and Primitive Indian pit firing. Her studies in Holland and Spain have influenced her work greatly over the past few years and her work is always focused on high quality pottery, in all of its forms.


Her work is available for sell at Kiln Openings at her home and at various pottery shows throughout the year including the Catawba Valley Pottery & Antiques Festival held each March in Hickory, NC.
Michelle Flowers