Folk Pottery Driving Tour. This driving tour, beginning either at the Folk Pottery Museum near Helen, or at the Northeast Georgia History Center in Gainesville, winds along the backroads of northeast Georgia to potters, retail outlets and museums. View map.  Photo: Matthew Hewell in his workshop at the Hewell Pottery in Gillsville.

The Folk Potters Trail of Northeast Georgia is a do-it-yourself driving and shopping tour put together by the Folk Pottery Museum of Northeast Georgia in Sautee-Nacoochee and the Northeast Georgia History Center in Gainesville. It leads to men and women recognized as linked to a 200-year tradition of crafting pottery once essential for household use and now valued and collected as distinctive folk art. It takes you through rural landscapes, along creeks and rivers, and includes homesteads that have been handed down for many generations.

Meeting these potters and viewing and collecting their work will connect you to a unique heritage of American and Southern folk art. (more…)