When Pottery Finds You — Life Below the Blue Ridge

At a Glance

Who: Cris Tadesse
What: A working pottery studio and creative destination offering handmade wheel-thrown stoneware, Glaze Your Own experiences, workshops, custom pottery, gifts, and everyday-use ceramics.
Where: 126 W. Main Street, Pilot Mountain
Since: Crisanthemum began as Cris's home-based pottery business after she moved to Mount Airy in 2021. On January 17, 2025, Crisanthemum Studios opened its first storefront in downtown Pilot Mountain.

The Story

Sometimes you find a place. And sometimes, a place finds you.

"Well, Pilot Mountain found me!"

Cris Tadesse's journey to Main Street began several states away, during a season of change.

Cris didn't set out to build a pottery studio in Pilot Mountain. She didn't even begin pottery intending to turn it into a business.

She found clay at a time when she was finding herself again.

Today, Crisanthemum Studios is a working pottery studio, retail shop, creative space, and gathering place in downtown Pilot Mountain.

But the pottery is only part of the story.

At its heart, Crisanthemum is about creativity, connection, and community.

"We have moved from a business to a community."

Meet Cris

In 2019, Cris was living in Florida and raising her daughter, who was around 18 at the time.

Her daughter was beginning to transition into adulthood, and Cris was experiencing a transition of her own.

The empty-nest stage had arrived. It was hard. Her therapist suggested pottery.

Cris found a local community center with a pottery studio and gave it a try.

She loved it.

And she found something there that she hadn't expected.

“Clay became the place where I found myself again."

That sentence may be the key to understanding everything that came afterward.

On her website, Cris describes touching clay for the first time as something that changed her life. She says clay became a metaphor for healing, building, and growth.

Like clay, she says, we slump, spin, crack and break.

And then we put things back together.

For Cris, that wasn't simply a metaphor.

It became a way of life.

Cris Tadesse at Crisanthemum Studios, surrounded by the creativity and color that make the studio her own.

From Florida to North Carolina

Before Cris moved to North Carolina, she was living in Tampa.

It was busy. The traffic was terrible. And although she was surrounded by people, she didn't necessarily feel connected to the people around her.

She had a pottery wheel in her spare bedroom, though, and in her free time she was beginning to discover what clay could mean to her.

Then COVID hit.

Like so many people, Cris's work and daily life began to change. Her company began offering work-from-home opportunities that gave employees the freedom to live somewhere other than where their office was located.

For Cris, it created an opportunity.

By then, her daughter had moved into her own place, and Cris was living alone in Tampa.

When her daughter moved into her first apartment, Cris made her a set of dishes. She plans to keep adding to that collection over the years—pieces for special occasions, or just because—so it can grow along with her daughter and become part of the story of her life.

Cris knew she wanted something different.

She wanted to live somewhere she could belong, contribute, and thrive.

So, she looked at a map and decided to move to Mount Airy.

As she was driving north with a U-Haul trailer, her grandmother called her around 2 a.m.

Her grandmother was a night owl who was often up at different times during the night.

That night, she had something to say.

"Cris, you are the strongest woman I know."

Her grandmother probably had no idea how much those words would mean to her.

Cris has carried them with her ever since.

Her grandmother loved growing violets, and today Cris makes self-watering violet pots. The violets she grows in them were rooted from her grandmother's plants.

It is a small but beautiful connection between where Cris came from and what she has built.

Finding a Home in Pilot Mountain

After moving to Mount Airy in 2021, Cris set up her pottery operation in the basement of her home.

She added a kiln. Then a second kiln. She created pottery and sold it through shows.

Eventually, she knew she was ready for something more.

She wanted a public space where she could create, invite people in and sell her work—a place where, eventually, other people could come in and create, too.

She made calls around Mount Airy but didn't receive any return calls.

Then someone from Pilot Mountain called her.

Cris began looking at spaces in Pilot Mountain. She had considered two other spaces before finding the one she ultimately chose. After leaving a design meeting for the second space, she remembers thinking they had already outgrown it.

It wasn't going to be enough for what Crisanthemum was becoming.

So, she left the meeting and got in her car. She wasn't really looking for another space that day.

She checked Facebook. And there it was. A space on Main Street was available.

She called and was able to see it right away.

As soon as she walked through the door, she thought: "This is it!"

What happened next wasn't the result of a carefully planned search. It was simply one of those moments when the right place seemed to find her.

More Than Pottery

When Cris first imagined Crisanthemum Studios, she knew she wanted it to be more than a place where people could buy pottery.

The studio's mission is to inspire and nurture creativity through handmade ceramics in a welcoming space where people can connect, explore their passions and celebrate art.

Today, visitors can shop for handmade pottery, try the Glaze Your Own experience, participate in pottery classes and workshops, or work with the studio on custom logo pottery.

But pottery is only one way people can enter the creative world Cris has created.

Crisanthemum has grown into what Cris describes as a creative destination.

The studio regularly brings in instructors and artists for workshops and a variety of artistic pursuits—crochet and knitting, stained glass, watercolor, flower arranging and many others. It also hosts special events and continues to look for new ways to invite people into the creative process.

The idea is to give people an opportunity to immerse themselves in art.

To try something they may have never tried before. To slow down. To make something.

And perhaps, to experience the same feeling Cris experiences when she creates.

A sense of peace.

What began with Cris finding herself through clay has become a place where other people can discover something of their own.

And there is a phrase Cris and her team use that captures that beautifully:

“We make it by hand, and you make it your own.”

The Potter

Cris is still the primary potter at Crisanthemum Studios, making the majority of the studio’s pottery while a growing production team helps bring the work to life.

Her work is designed to be used. That's important to Cris.

The studio's handmade stoneware includes mugs, soup mugs, everyday cups, serving bowls, kitchen pottery, flower frogs, planters, gifts, and custom logo pottery.

And Cris has a particular affection for one piece:

Her mug.

More specifically, its handle.

She designed the handle so that it comfortably accommodates one-, two- or three-finger holds.

It's a small detail, but it's the kind of detail that tells you something about the person making the piece.

Cris wants pottery to work in people's actual lives.

Her philosophy is simple:

"I wouldn't make it if I can't use it. It's art to enjoy daily."

That may be one of the best descriptions of what Crisanthemum creates.

Not art that is too precious to touch. Art that becomes part of everyday life.

A morning cup of coffee. A bowl of soup. A serving dish on the dinner table. A handmade gift.

Something useful that also happens to be beautiful.

A closer look at some of Cris’s handmade pottery.

Life in the Community

For Cris, choosing Pilot Mountain was never simply about finding a storefront.

She had moved to North Carolina because she wanted community.

She wanted to belong, contribute, and thrive.

Now she gets to help create that same sense of connection for others.

And that vision is already taking shape. People come to Crisanthemum to make things, learn something new, meet people, and sometimes simply slow down for a while.

That vision extends beyond the walls of the studio.

Cris is also the Chair of the Promotions Committee for the Pilot Mountain Main Street Coordinating Committee, which is involved in the town's downtown revitalization efforts.

She says she was drawn to the committee because its goals aligned with hers.

"I fit the goals of the town and the town fit my goals."

She came to Pilot Mountain when town leadership was showing resilience and rebuilding.

She wanted to be part of that. She wanted to be a beacon.

She wanted to be part of the town's growth and success.

Her experience as a downtown business owner has also changed the way she sees the community.

She's spent more time understanding how things work. She's learned that everyone is connected.

"We are all neighbors."

And now she asks herself a simple question: "Am I being neighborly?"

There are other small choices that reflect the way Cris thinks about her place in the Pilot Mountain business community.

Because Crisanthemum Studios is located in the Pilot Mountain Social District, visitors can enjoy a drink while browsing the shop or glazing their own pottery. The studio offers a selection of beers and wines from around the world, along with specialty snacks.

But there is also a deliberate decision behind what they don't carry.

They don't offer wines from the local area wineries because they don't want to compete with those businesses. Instead, they want people to visit the local wineries and enjoy what each has to offer.

It's a small decision, but it says something about how Cris sees her place in the larger business community.

There is room for everyone.

That philosophy seems to extend beyond the business community.

It is also reflected in what Crisanthemum Studios has become.

A place to come. A place to create. A place to meet people.

A place to belong.

When the Studio Becomes More Than a Business

There have been many customer stories that have stayed with Cris.

One involved a woman who had experienced an extraordinary amount of loss.

Cris doesn't share the details of her story, but what stayed with her was what happened after the woman found Crisanthemum Studios.

She found a place where she could create. She found community.

And, in that community and in the act of creating art, she found some peace and healing.

For Cris, that experience speaks to what the studio can be at its best.

Everyone has things they walk through in life.

Sometimes, finding a place where you can simply make something, be around other people and feel connected can matter more than you realize.

That may be why Cris keeps coming back to the idea of community.

The pottery matters. The workshops matter. The beautiful things on the shelves matter.

But the people matter more.

Clay, Growth and Gratitude

Cris says clay has a way of humbling you. Business will humble you even more.

But what has come out of the experience is gratitude.

"It's made me grateful."

She says she has never worked harder, but she has also never been as fulfilled.

That fulfillment seems to come from more than making pottery.

It comes from seeing someone glaze their first piece and realize they really can do it.

It comes from people discovering a new creative interest.

It comes from conversations that happen while people are making something with their hands.

It comes from watching friendships form.

And it comes from knowing that something that helped her find herself again can perhaps help someone else find a little peace, too.

Every year, Cris and her team each choose a word.

For 2026, Cris chose Steadfast.

For her, that means focusing on being available and strong.

It is another word that seems to fit the journey that brought her from Florida, through a spare bedroom and a basement in Mount Airy, to a pottery studio on Main Street in Pilot Mountain.

What Stood Out to Me

What stayed with me most about Crisanthemum Studios wasn't simply the pottery.

It was the feeling that something is happening there.

People aren't just shopping.

They're making things. They're talking. They're sharing food. They're glazing pottery.

They're learning. They're sometimes getting a little dirty.

And they're leaving with something they made—or something someone else made by hand.

I also had the opportunity to watch Cris at her wheel.

I had never watched pottery being made before, and I was fascinated by how much happens between a ball of clay and the finished piece sitting on a shelf.

She started with a ball of clay and centered it on the wheel. Then came a process called coning, where she worked the clay up and down several times to prepare it for shaping.

Once the clay was ready, she slowed the wheel and began forming a bowl.

She opened the center first, then gradually pulled the clay upward, raising and shaping the walls as the wheel turned. Her hands seemed to know exactly what to do.

She used a tool to make sure the inside bottom of the bowl was even, then smoothed the rim, cleaned away the excess clay around the base and carefully lifted the finished piece from the wheel.

She placed it on a shelf, where its next stage would begin.

And that's when I realized just how much goes into that simple-looking bowl sitting on a shelf in the shop.

The piece isn't finished when it comes off the wheel.

Once the clay is firm enough to handle but not completely dry, Cris adds her potter's mark to the bottom. Then it continues to dry before going into the kiln for its first firing.

After that, a piece might become part of the shop's inventory for someone to choose and glaze themselves. Or Cris and her team may glaze it.

Then it goes back into the kiln for a second firing.

After it cools, it's finally ready to be used and enjoyed.

From a ball of clay to something you can take home, the process typically takes about two weeks.

Standing there watching Cris make that bowl, I found myself thinking about how easy it is to look at a finished piece of pottery and never think about everything that happened before it reached the shelf.

The time. The patience. The skill. The hands that shaped it.

And, in this case, the person who found something in clay that helped her find herself again.

If You Go

If you’re visiting Crisanthemum Studios for the first time, you can simply stop in during regular business hours to browse the shop and see what’s being made—no appointment is needed just to visit. Convenient street parking is available along Main Street, or you can park in the Pilot Mountain Town Hall parking lot, just a few steps from the studio.

If you'd like to try the Glaze Your Own experience, the studio offers that as a walk-in activity, although larger groups should check with the studio ahead of time to make sure there is room. Workshops and special events may require registration.

Because workshops and special events change, it's a good idea to check the studio's website or social media before making a special trip for a particular class or event.

And if you're planning to glaze your own piece or attend a workshop, give yourself some time. This isn't a place you should rush through.

Part of the experience is looking around, choosing something that catches your eye, talking with the people there, and seeing where your creativity takes you.

Take your time and enjoy it.

Some of the best parts of the experience happen between brushstrokes, conversations, and those little moments when you surprise yourself with what you can create.

Visit / Connect

Business name: Crisanthemum Studios
Address: 126 W Main Street Suite 1, Pilot Mountain, NC 27041
Phone: 336-444-8113
Website: www.crisanthemumstudios.com
Email: info@crisanthemumstudios.com
Social media: Facebook · Instagram · Pinterest
Hours: Wednesday 10:00am - 5:00pm, Thursday - Saturday 10:00am - 8:00pm, Sunday 1:00pm - 5:00pm