Local residents travel to Charlotte to see teapots on display

Most of the folks who visited the Artful Teapot exhibit in Charlotte last week couldn’t decide which was their favorite.

An elaborate and dainty English cottage with a handle and spout, next to a teacup draped with a table cloth and holding a minuscule tea set?

A hand shaped teapot made of twigs and strings? A base of silver trays holding a stack of teacups topped by plates? A water tower? Silo? V-8 engine? Two gallon gas can? An “earthquake proof” teapot with springs?

“I guess if you can envision it, you can make it,” said Fern Absher, one of about 30 Alleghanians who saw the exhibit April 22.

“Isn’t this unbelievable?” said Celia Styron as she walked among teapots ranging from elegant to bizarre. “This is coming to Sparta? It’s unbelievable,” she said.

“I don’t know what I was expecting — silver tea sets maybe,” said Sherry Clodfelter. “But I’m blown away by this.”

New River Community Partners organized the trip last Thursday to the Mint Museum of Craft and Design in Charlotte. Displayed there is part of the teapot collection of Sonny and Gloria Kamm — the same collection that will have a permanent home in Sparta.

This trip included members of the extension and community association (formerly extension homemakers), the Sparta Woman’s Club and Friends of the Library.

Jonathan Halsey, project coordinator for Sparta’s future teapot museum, said he would organize more trips to Charlotte if there is interest. “If people are willing, I’ll take a trip a week until the end of May,” he said. The exhibit ends May 30.

“For a year now, people in the community have been hearing about the Kamms’ collection, the world’s largest teapot collection. But very few of the citizens of Alleghany have seen any of the teapots,” he said. The exhibit has been shown all over North America. “While it’s just a couple of hours away, we need to get as many people to see it as we can,” he said.

Halsey’s sentiments were echoed by curator Melissa Post, who greeted the group as they entered the museum.

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