Our Hurricane Helene Story
If you've already read our About page, then you know how Crazy Green Studios came to exist across two studio spaces in Riverview Station in Asheville's River Arts District. My studio within The Village Potters Clay Center (TVPCC) was where I made work to sell in our shared gallery, fulfilled commissions, and designed and made work for restaurants and food professionals. In that studio, I shared use of electric and gas reduction kilns, and kept a full inventory of backstock pottery for sale in our gallery. My own studio included an electric wheel, a large variety of tools, hand made molds, clay, and small equipment and studio furniture. My production studio was also on the first floor of Riverview Station, and it housed wheels, an electric kiln, slab roller, extruder, clay, glazes, and other materials to produce works for wholesale accounts, as well as our shipping equipment and supplies. Riverview Station is located across the street from The French Broad River.
A brief note here to say that under what we knew at that time as normal storm situations, we would generally have days in advance of any storm surge to prepare and move vulnerable equipment and inventory to the second floor or off site. In the case of this storm, the forecasts mainly focused on when the hurricane would hit our mountains, and so we planned for the days before as our time to move equipment and inventory. What we had not planned for, however, was the nonstop rain in those days ahead of the hurricane, and that caused early flooding of area roads and ended up cutting short our plans to move equipment. Our original plan was to load trucks and move them to higher ground, but we soon saw there wouldn't be time for that, so we started moving what we could to the second floor of our building. As I had equipment, tools, and inventory in both locations, my own time was split between the two spaces. In the end, we were evacuated from the building on the morning of September 26 as the river began to cut off all exit routes. We locked up and hoped for the best, and I think even at that point all we imagined we would have to deal with would be flood waters and a loss of wooden display pieces, kiln damage, and loss of work, tools, and materials on or near ground level.
What we could not imagine was what happened: the river rose over 26 feet, flooding the building with a force stronger than Niagara Falls, roiling the contents of the first floor and rising up to four feet in sections of the second floor. The water wouldn't recede for more than 70 hours, leaving storm debris and river sludge in its wake. Both studios were completely destroyed. When we went to the building after the waters receded, we could only get part way into one of the entrances to the TVP space. I made my way to my production studio, but the door was held shut by the sludge and what I imagined was studio furniture that landed against it. It would take several days of careful clearing to gain entry to other parts of the TVP space, and in all it was over a week before we could even peek into our studio spaces as large debris blocked all entrances. The same was true for my production studio. At one point during salvage operations, there was an organized call for help to the community, and hordes of people showed up with tools and patience and love to help us reach spaces and bring out whatever could be salvaged. I admit that after a few days of mucking through the sludge I was feeling more than overwhelmed, and it was hard to see anything among all the destruction. Big shout out to all the helpers (including my friend Andrea who came and patiently carried things through dark muddy hallways from the second floor to my car for salvage when I could barely move). I don't know that I'll ever have the words to fully convey the deep gratitude for all the helping hands, both near and far, that gave me and so many others so much support in those days and weeks.
They say a picture is worth ... well you know. What follows are several thousand words, in that case. Scroll down for our post-storm recovery updates.
A brief note here to say that under what we knew at that time as normal storm situations, we would generally have days in advance of any storm surge to prepare and move vulnerable equipment and inventory to the second floor or off site. In the case of this storm, the forecasts mainly focused on when the hurricane would hit our mountains, and so we planned for the days before as our time to move equipment and inventory. What we had not planned for, however, was the nonstop rain in those days ahead of the hurricane, and that caused early flooding of area roads and ended up cutting short our plans to move equipment. Our original plan was to load trucks and move them to higher ground, but we soon saw there wouldn't be time for that, so we started moving what we could to the second floor of our building. As I had equipment, tools, and inventory in both locations, my own time was split between the two spaces. In the end, we were evacuated from the building on the morning of September 26 as the river began to cut off all exit routes. We locked up and hoped for the best, and I think even at that point all we imagined we would have to deal with would be flood waters and a loss of wooden display pieces, kiln damage, and loss of work, tools, and materials on or near ground level.
What we could not imagine was what happened: the river rose over 26 feet, flooding the building with a force stronger than Niagara Falls, roiling the contents of the first floor and rising up to four feet in sections of the second floor. The water wouldn't recede for more than 70 hours, leaving storm debris and river sludge in its wake. Both studios were completely destroyed. When we went to the building after the waters receded, we could only get part way into one of the entrances to the TVP space. I made my way to my production studio, but the door was held shut by the sludge and what I imagined was studio furniture that landed against it. It would take several days of careful clearing to gain entry to other parts of the TVP space, and in all it was over a week before we could even peek into our studio spaces as large debris blocked all entrances. The same was true for my production studio. At one point during salvage operations, there was an organized call for help to the community, and hordes of people showed up with tools and patience and love to help us reach spaces and bring out whatever could be salvaged. I admit that after a few days of mucking through the sludge I was feeling more than overwhelmed, and it was hard to see anything among all the destruction. Big shout out to all the helpers (including my friend Andrea who came and patiently carried things through dark muddy hallways from the second floor to my car for salvage when I could barely move). I don't know that I'll ever have the words to fully convey the deep gratitude for all the helping hands, both near and far, that gave me and so many others so much support in those days and weeks.
They say a picture is worth ... well you know. What follows are several thousand words, in that case. Scroll down for our post-storm recovery updates.
Recovery Updates:
A brief (as possible) timeline of major events post-hurricane:
The end of 2024 was spent helping salvage materials and work from the devastated studio spaces, and joining my studio mates and volunteers in power washing and scrubbing salvageable pieces. It also involved me working to complete existing commissions and works in progress. I was able to move key pieces to a safe spot on the second floor, and had salvaged parts of other commissions. Thanks to the generosity of other artists in Asheville, I had a small studio space to work in (eternal gratitude to Plays in Mud Studios for hosting me for a full year!) as well as use of a reduction kiln (eternal gratitude to Candice Hensley Ceramics) to complete those orders, and ongoing use of a second studio to maintain a key existing wholesale account (multiple eternities of gratitude to Tim Kerns who has hosted us continually since the storm). In that time, I also realized that I needed to focus my energies on maintaining my wholesale business, which meant that I would not join my beloved TVPCC team in rebuilding that facility. I'm still a fervent "Village Person" and while this next phase will be focused on my business, we will always be connected, and they continue to offer support in so many ways, including being my Fiscal Sponsor for my new studio fundraiser. I also made the decision that I would pursue oxidation/electric firing going forward, at least in the initial rebuilding of my studio, as it would be more practical and affordable. I was also able to more fully embrace new wholesale opportunities and launched a starter line of work on the Faire wholesale platform. Thanks to the incredible generosity of Plays in Mud Studios and Tim Kerns, I had space and resources to maintain (and even develop new!) accounts while I tested clays and glazes for a new body of work. And thanks to The Village Potters Foundation, I also have a second workspace again that is allowing me to fulfill the orders I took at the January wholesale show while we try to finalize details for our new space.
It's hard to believe it's been more than 19 months since the hurricane, and that we are still working on getting into a new studio space. While I knew it would not be quick or easy to recover, I underestimated the challenge of maintaining existing business, designing new work for a new firing source, developing a new body of work, and looking for a new studio home in a competitive area where so many other artist were displaced.
Thanks to fundraising efforts, donations, and grants, I have been slowly replacing key equipment for a new studio. My garage, which became my make-shift shipping area, quickly filled with new and used kilns, studio furniture, small tools and supplies. I am so proud of my small team (and myself!) for what we were maintained and achieved in 2025, fulfilling orders across two studios and a garage shipping department! This is a very shortened version of everything that happened over 2025, and much more has been and will be said about the contributions of many.
The end of 2024 was spent helping salvage materials and work from the devastated studio spaces, and joining my studio mates and volunteers in power washing and scrubbing salvageable pieces. It also involved me working to complete existing commissions and works in progress. I was able to move key pieces to a safe spot on the second floor, and had salvaged parts of other commissions. Thanks to the generosity of other artists in Asheville, I had a small studio space to work in (eternal gratitude to Plays in Mud Studios for hosting me for a full year!) as well as use of a reduction kiln (eternal gratitude to Candice Hensley Ceramics) to complete those orders, and ongoing use of a second studio to maintain a key existing wholesale account (multiple eternities of gratitude to Tim Kerns who has hosted us continually since the storm). In that time, I also realized that I needed to focus my energies on maintaining my wholesale business, which meant that I would not join my beloved TVPCC team in rebuilding that facility. I'm still a fervent "Village Person" and while this next phase will be focused on my business, we will always be connected, and they continue to offer support in so many ways, including being my Fiscal Sponsor for my new studio fundraiser. I also made the decision that I would pursue oxidation/electric firing going forward, at least in the initial rebuilding of my studio, as it would be more practical and affordable. I was also able to more fully embrace new wholesale opportunities and launched a starter line of work on the Faire wholesale platform. Thanks to the incredible generosity of Plays in Mud Studios and Tim Kerns, I had space and resources to maintain (and even develop new!) accounts while I tested clays and glazes for a new body of work. And thanks to The Village Potters Foundation, I also have a second workspace again that is allowing me to fulfill the orders I took at the January wholesale show while we try to finalize details for our new space.
It's hard to believe it's been more than 19 months since the hurricane, and that we are still working on getting into a new studio space. While I knew it would not be quick or easy to recover, I underestimated the challenge of maintaining existing business, designing new work for a new firing source, developing a new body of work, and looking for a new studio home in a competitive area where so many other artist were displaced.
Thanks to fundraising efforts, donations, and grants, I have been slowly replacing key equipment for a new studio. My garage, which became my make-shift shipping area, quickly filled with new and used kilns, studio furniture, small tools and supplies. I am so proud of my small team (and myself!) for what we were maintained and achieved in 2025, fulfilling orders across two studios and a garage shipping department! This is a very shortened version of everything that happened over 2025, and much more has been and will be said about the contributions of many.
In the Spring of 2025 I began looking at potential new studio spaces. As much as I love and cherish my many years in the River Arts District, 80% of that area. had been devastated, and while great rebuilding efforts have been going on there, I was not comfortable with the idea of rebuilding in a potentially vulnerable space again. I visited many spaces, but never found the right combination of factors that would give us a good place to not only rebuild, but grow. I am learning more than I ever thought I might want to know about commercial real estate, but thankfully have yet another incredible person to be thankful for in my broker, Jessi Leonetti. We are now in the final stages of negotiating a lease on a space. This specific sentence has been edited at least three times, as we approached different spaces with great hopes. But it's really true this time - you will be able to read more details about the new space here.
By the end of 2025, all commission work was complete and I had moved out of one of my temporary work spaces to focus more fully on acquiring and upfitting a new space we had been working toward for several months. The first month of 2026 was both working on putting together all necessary information to complete our lease for the new space, and making final preparations for my first wholesale show in mid-February. I was very hopeful we might have a lease signed before I left for this show, or if not, immediately upon my return. I mention this only to try and illustrate a measure of the exhaustion that comes with maintaining business, building new business, and looking for a suitable space in a highly competitive market. The lease was not signed before I left for the wholesale market, and yet I was still able to sign eight new clients. We began hitting snags with our efforts over the next two months that followed, and it finally became necessary to start looking elsewhere. Turning away from something we'd been working toward for over six months was unsettling, but it turned out to be the best move. I looked to my network of artist friends and colleagues, took suggestions and referrals and started looking at spaces again. And we have found our space, more than 600 days after the hurricane. More news will be shared as we finalize the details, and we will be gratefully accepting additional support as we move into this new home - read more details about that here.
I continue to be so deeply grateful for all the support I have received, and I am so ready to both launch and relaunch Crazy Green Studios and continue to pay it forward in my community and beyond. Thank you for your support!
By the end of 2025, all commission work was complete and I had moved out of one of my temporary work spaces to focus more fully on acquiring and upfitting a new space we had been working toward for several months. The first month of 2026 was both working on putting together all necessary information to complete our lease for the new space, and making final preparations for my first wholesale show in mid-February. I was very hopeful we might have a lease signed before I left for this show, or if not, immediately upon my return. I mention this only to try and illustrate a measure of the exhaustion that comes with maintaining business, building new business, and looking for a suitable space in a highly competitive market. The lease was not signed before I left for the wholesale market, and yet I was still able to sign eight new clients. We began hitting snags with our efforts over the next two months that followed, and it finally became necessary to start looking elsewhere. Turning away from something we'd been working toward for over six months was unsettling, but it turned out to be the best move. I looked to my network of artist friends and colleagues, took suggestions and referrals and started looking at spaces again. And we have found our space, more than 600 days after the hurricane. More news will be shared as we finalize the details, and we will be gratefully accepting additional support as we move into this new home - read more details about that here.
I continue to be so deeply grateful for all the support I have received, and I am so ready to both launch and relaunch Crazy Green Studios and continue to pay it forward in my community and beyond. Thank you for your support!
GIFT CARDS
