Home Paintings Horsehair Pottery Pottery Links FAQ’s About 7917 Burkesville Road Columbia, KY. 42728 etta@duo-county.com 270-378-6421 Media Website Design and Maintenance by HyperCo Web Solutions. Copyright 2010 Highland Raku Studio No part of this website may be copied without prior written consent by Jeff or Henrietta Scott. Henrietta and Jeffrey Scott spent 31 years teaching in the public schools of Kentucky.  Upon retirement, they purchased an old country store and the property that surrounded it to convert into a studio and gallery. After a considerable amount of time reworking the old building, Highland Raku Studio and Gallery was born. Henrietta had attended Texas A and M in Corpus Christi, Texas to learn the raku process and she followed this with classes at Appalachian School for Crafts.  Here she became inspired to create a new direction with her glazing and her horsehair pottery. Jeffrey began to practice throwing on the wheel after viewing a few videos.  It took a lot of practice and many failures before he was successful in centering and raising a pot.  He then took throwing at Appalachian School for Crafts and continues to learn from other potters, books and trial and error. With this beginning, Henrietta and Jeff began to work on glazing in an attempt to create something that was unique to them.  Being surrounded by trees of all kinds, it was only natural for them to use leaves as a decorative aspect of their glazed pottery.  From the forest came the leaves of the rhododendron to use for the designs.  From the orchard came the grape leaves to decorate wine coolers.  Colors from the airbrush were sprayed over these to serve as the background to the crackling and flashing glazes. Henrietta became interested in the lines of the horsehair applied to pottery but desired to do something to make it her own.  She came up with the idea of painting racing horses on the pottery using an under glaze. This lead to a whole host of requests: horses without riders, horses used in fox hunting, equestrian event horses, etc. Finally there were individuals who requested their horse be painted on the pot and its hair be used for decoration. It has been great fun to learn the process of raku.  We have made many mistakes and had lots of failures but we have been more than rewarded by those pieces that have achieved the unexpected—those that have made us say “Wow !” Wheeler’s Store, Sparksville, KY circa 1928 reborn for 2010 The building that now houses Highland Raku Studio began its life in 1928.  Its purpose was to be a gas station and garage to serve the community. It was surrounded by other buildings that also provided goods and services to the area at that time. One of the buildings was a blacksmith shop another was a furniture factory.  The blacksmith shop represented the fading of time and the new building represented the coming of the auto to rural Kentucky. As business grew, the family added a small addition to the garage to serve as a county store.  It would provide these services to the community until the late 1970’s.  Jeffrey Scott’s Grandfather was the mechanic at the garage on “Wheeler Hill” from the 1930’s until the 1960’s. Throughout the year cars were repaired and engines were rebuilt but most importantly the community gathered to discuss the issues of the day. The store served as the gathering place for children waiting for the bus and, of course, each had to leave a picture that was placed behind the glass on the counter.  Even today many people stop in the studio to just pass on a story or take a look at the changes that have been made. Henrietta and Jeffrey Scott