Finding Their Tribe: The History (and Future) of Phelps Pottery
Filled with love, creativity, facepots, determination, and perseverance, the legacy established by the Phelps family will celebrate its 40-year anniversary in 2027.
How does one find Floyd? Some are born here, but most long-time residents have a tale of a chance encounter, a random conversation, or a sequence of events that led them to it. Such was the trail for Tom Phelps, who, along with his wife Carol and sons Adam and Seth, forged a lasting legacy at Phelps Studio. Filled with love, creativity, facepots, determination, and perseverance, the legacy will celebrate its 40-year anniversary in 2027.
Tom grew up in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and attended Thiel College, a private liberal arts and sciences school located in Greenville, Pennsylvania, where he met and fell in love with his wife, Carol. Tom himself spent a great deal of time in college painting and dabbling in other disciplines, including ceramics, while Carol was a microbiology major. The two married in 1971, graduated from Thiel in 1972, and promptly moved to Southwest Virginia for Carol to continue her studies at Virginia Tech.
Tom worked as a state surveyor, working on projects such as the widening of U.S. 221 on Bent Mountain, and Carol worked as a tutor when they first started looking for a place to plant roots. Luckily, they met Will Bason and his wife, Chrys, and were invited to a potluck at one of Floyd’s first intentional communities, Travianna, which was established by Ruth Bason in 1972. There, Tom and Carol found their tribe and decided that Floyd County would become their home.
In 1976, they purchased a homestead off of Stagecoach Run for $30,000 and brought it to life by leasing land from the Blue Ridge Parkway and neighbors, which led to mutual respect and friendships. In total, Tom came to manage about 125 acres worth of assorted greens, Asian cabbages, and tomatoes, which were shipped out in bulk alongside some of their neighbors’ produce. Around this time, Tom adopted a uniform that became an integral part of his identity: a tie dye shirt and Pointer brand bibs from G.J. Ingram and Son. As time carried on, he and his bibs became synonymous.
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In 1987, Tom purchased a Brent Pottery Wheel, and the farm became the home of Phelps Studio, which is now a second-generation business in Floyd County.
Tom began modifying the shed he had built for produce storage to accommodate the pottery wheel. The expansion eventually took over the tractor shed, then the greenhouse. In 1988, he built a wood fire salt kiln on the back of the space. Seth, who was only eight or nine years old at the time, was there for it all. He helped create the studio space that is still as busy as ever in 2026.
From the beginning, Tom threw plates, cups and coasters, and even shot glasses. His experience with produce and leftover materials smoothed the transition to craft vendor while he was able to sell his products at the same local markets, including Blacksburg Farmers Market and craft fairs in Salem.
In 1989, Tom was an accepted vendor at The Yankee Peddler Festival in North Lawrence, Ohio. The three-weekend show that now covers 75 acres featured one-of-a-kind artwork, pioneer-day costumes, and skills and craft demonstrations. While he attended his first Yankee Peddler Festival alone, the following year, he brought Seth along to help manage the till. Unbeknownst to Tom or Seth, fate was about to throw some clay of its own.
One day, Tom took a break from the wheel to talk with some customers, and Seth took his place. As he had countless times before, he started playing with a pot Tom had thrown and applying a face to it. It took him some time to realize that he was being observed by about 300 people, mesmerized by the boy placing a face on a pot.
Tom took it all in, knowing that a demand was being created. He watched as person after person stopped to watch Seth create a facepot, and customers started to ask if there were others available to purchase.
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The following vendor season, Tom made sure to keep some facepots on hand, and at every show, they drew customers to his booth. Throughout the 1990s, there was experimentation with all different types of faces, and Tom learned that the “beautiful faces” didn’t draw a crowd. Instead, customers showed up for the "gruesome" and “grotesque.”
Another contributing factor in the evolution of Phelps Studio's facepots was the near constant presence of Tom and Carol’s teenage sons' friends. Sure, the teenagers ate all their food, and pushed them to their limits at times, but for the most part Tom and Carol nourished the teens’ hearts and minds with support and care, inspiring a whole new generation of artists, creators, and engineers.
In the studio, Tom inspired, mentored, and later employed an unknown number of young artists with their own unique style. Josh Copus, a close friend of Seth’s, was one of the kids living his best life under the influence of Tom. In his 16 Hands Studio Tour Bio, he paid tribute to Tom and said, “He showed me my life’s work when I was 16, and I’ve been following that path ever since.”
Tom and Carol’s oldest son, Adam, graduated from high school in 1995 and went on to attend Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to become a software engineer. He went on to be accepted to Stanford University as a graduate student, receiving his masters in 2001. Now, Adam and his wife, Martha, split their time between the San Francisco area, where Adam works for Cisco Systems, and Las Vegas, where Martha works as an Assistant Professor in Residence of Political Science.
It was Adam who gifted Tom an iPod, bringing his father's love of music into the digital era. Tom had always played music in the studio, but the iPod made it possible for him to have his vast collection at his fingertips. His family has said that, since his passing, it is as if he still communicates with them through the thousands and thousands of songs that played as he worked, some of them playing just for Carol and some setting the tone for conversations with friends and neighbors.
While Adam entered the tech industry, Seth has pursued a career in the arts, following in Tom’s footsteps after years of traveling with him to various trade shows and festivals. After graduating high school in 1997, Seth spent the summer taking a lampworking (a.k.a. “torchworking”) class at Penland School of Craft in North Carolina. The experience, which included working under renowned glass master Cesare Toffolo, deeply sparked Seth’s interest in creating.
He returned to Penland in 1998 to focus his studies on glass blowing and blacksmithing, before transferring to the Appalachian Center for Craft in Cookeville, Tennessee, to further his skills in those crafts. There he met his partner, Lara, and the two traversed college together before moving back to Floyd in 2000 to start their future. They had their own children, Myrin (2004) and Jeret (2006).
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Somewhere along the way, Seth and Lara were ensnared in the “facepot mania.” Lara said, “We had every intention of a future in glass, and still may, but how could one not want to be a part of something this special and amazing.”
More than a decade after it started, Phelps Studio was still riding the facepot wave, and Tom was still participating in The Yankee Peddler Festival, FloydFest, the Sugar Loaf Craft Expo, and more, covering about a dozen shows a year.
Carol’s Career
While Phelps Studio navigated the craft circuits of the 2000s, Carol was busy making history in microbiology.
Have you heard of Dolly the Sheep, the first cloned mammal? The actual cloning took place in Scotland but the vital research that made it possible, took place in Blacksburg. Guess who was on that team? Carol Phelps, now retired, an esteemed top-tier research scientist with Revivicor.
Revivicor is a biotechnology company specializing in Xenotransplantation, which is the transplantation of live cells, tissues or organs from animals, into humans. Carol holds several patents.
Then, Tom was diagnosed with cancer in 2013. The many friendships he’d nurtured over the years morphed into a cherished support system when he needed it most. Everyone — whether they were a regular presence or a passing acquaintance — rallied behind Tom and his recovery.
Visitors did what they would normally be doing when they were with Tom: sitting on the porch, listening to music and playing bluegrass, laughing and sharing stories of times gone by, discussing history, and of course, talking golf, one of Tom’s great joys.
Tom was well enough to attend FloydFest 2015, but his health quickly declined and he was unable to go to the Yankee Peddler that year. His family reached out to the festival leaders, who were understanding of the situation of their long-time vendor. They bent the rules and accepted an alternate team to cover Phelps's booth that year.
Seth said, “I’m incredibly grateful to have had the friends that were capable and knowledgeable enough to set up the booth and put on the presentations. The artist community and show circuit were incredibly caring and supportive.”
On Saturday, Sept. 18, 2015, Tom Phelps passed away surrounded by family and loved ones. A Celebration of Life was held on Oct. 1, and Seth dubbed his father, “one of the chiefs of our tribe.”
For the next few years, Phelps Studio tried to find their new stride, moving forward while always remembering and honoring Tom. Then, another major hurdle for the family’s company reared its head: the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two of Phelps Studio's largest earning events — The Sugar Loaf Craft Expo and FloydFest — were both canceled. Adding to the injury was travel restrictions, which limited their options for new sales to help recover revenue and build personal relationships with new customers.
However, there was at least one bright spot for the future of Phelps Studios during the pandemic: Seth saw that the Morton Turner Store on Franklin Pike was up for sale, and on a whim, he shared the listing with his brother Adam. Seth was elated when Adam was just as intrigued as he was. They (and Carol) visited the store and though it was in need of a lot of repairs, Seth was sold. He thought of Gerald Via, one of his father’s friends and a key member of the Floyd Historical Society, who helped instill a passion in Seth for the preservation of Floyd County history. The family bought the store.
Facepots made in 2026. Photos by Becky Hodge
Now, six years after the pandemic shut down the world, Phelps Studio lives on with new endeavors, including the restoration of the Morton Turner Store. The building has new electrical, upgraded bathroom facilities and a new water system, with more projects in the works. Stories of the past emerge from the store, the walls seem to talk, whispering of the past, and also through the people who have been influenced by it in one way or another, stopping by to share their stories. Stories that Seth plans to share through the creation of a new charity and nonprofit.
The vision is to load the shelves with all things Floyd — history yes, but art, which goes hand in hand with history will be at the forefront. And Floyd will answer the call, as it is home to potters, painters, photographers, musicians, writers, glass and metal workers, you name it, it’s here. By creating a non-profit, local businesses will be able to donate but also share their craft, all while giving back, which will benefit their business and community. Picture front porch pickin', food, events, more art than one can take in, in Floyd, supporting and sharing, but predominantly honoring and remembering the community that made it what it is today.
Learn more about Phelps Studio and follow their journey at www.facebook.com/phelpsstudio. More information about the Turner Store Restoration Project can be found here.
Writer’s Note: This “short” story has so many more pieces to the puzzle, and so many more people vital to its story. Know that even if your name does not appear in this article, your presence was felt, and your part of the story mattered and contributed along the way. — Becky Hodge
Photos of facepots taken by Tom Phelps.
