Robbie Bell | Speckled Dog Pottery

If pottery is the entrée, food the appetizer, music the dessert–then it’s a meal that has fed Robbie Bell’s passion for decades. As Speckled Dog Pottery, he creates functional ceramics for everyday and every day that is destined to be extraordinary.

 He began his career in classical music, studying Music Education at the University of South Carolina. He now serves as Organist and Choirmaster at Trinity Episcopal Church in Spruce Pine, NC.

 But his love for food began in South Carolina years before in a family of “home” cooks. His skills translated into delicious feasts for two senses—sight and taste. The food he prepared, wrote about in two successful cookbooks, and created for clients up and down the southeast coast needed only one addition—to be served around the table, on the platters, in the bowls, and filling the cups he imagined. That vision brought him to Penland School of Craft in North Carolina where he studied under well-known ceramists, and where Speckled Dog Pottery eventually was born.

Robbie’s pieces, all made with hand-made glazes on porcelaneous stoneware, are food safe and include serving platters, bowls, dinnerware, drinking vessels, and teapots. And he continues to add to his creative repertoire of functional, every day yet elegant ware. His work can be found and used in kitchens and at tables across the country and abroad.

Locally, Speckled Dog Pottery is available at Mica Gallery in Bakersville, Toe River Arts, and Market on Oak, both in Spruce Pine.

 “Mise en place, the French culinary term meaning “putting in place” or “gather” describes my philosophy in life and work. Create delicious food, present it on elegant dinner ware, fill the air with the music, and you have put in place, gathered a complete experience.”