Josh Copus

Josh Copus is a ceramic artist and creative entrepreneur from Marshall, North Carolina, where he lives with his flower farmer wife Emily Copus. Josh is originally from Floyd County, Virginia, where he was raised in a close-knit community of farmers and artisans in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The local traditions of crafts and agriculture in Appalachia blended with the new ideas and outlook of the alternative community to form the basis of Josh’s life philosophy and instill an appreciation for art and nature that strongly influences his current work in ceramics. Since moving to North Carolina in 1998 to attend Warren Wilson College, Josh has continued to study ceramics at a variety of schools and through countless hours of working with other artists throughout the world. He received an associates degree in professional crafts from the Haywood Community College in 2003 and a bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of North Carolina, Asheville in 2007, where he started the Building Community Project. 

"Clay is a material accepting of impression. It is a record of every process, from its geological formation in the earth to its eventual transformation in the fire. My work with ceramics begins with the clay. By using local materials dug from the river bottoms and mountainsides of western North Carolina, my work gains a connection to place and establishes the materials as a valuable source of influence. I dig my own clay from a tobacco field alongside Turkey Creek and everything I make contains an element of my response to that experience."