The Southern Highlands Craft Guild Artists’ Holiday Sale will take place on two separate Saturdays this year: Dec. 5 and 12. The sale will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day at the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville.

The Guild’s annual sale provides an opportunity for individual members and the organization to sell overruns, discontinued stock and studio seconds in a festive atmosphere during the holiday season. Artisans of the Guild will be liquidating their handcrafts of 2009 just in time for the holidays. Examples include potters who have discontinued a glaze color, jewelers who are trying a new concept, and glass artists and weavers with overstocks. Discounts range from 10 – 50 percent off of retail prices.

Currently on display at the Folk Art Center is the work of Cynthia Bringle and Norman Schulman, both potters from Penland, NC. Bringle has been a member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild since 1970 and Schulman was awarded honorary Guild membership in 2008.

Bringle and Schulman were selected to receive the 2009 Living Treasures Award by the UNC-Wilmington Museum of World Cultures, William Madison Randall Library, which is sponsoring the traveling exhibit. The award was given in recognition of their standing among the finest potters and ceramicists in America today and for their contributions as artists and artisans to their field. In keeping with the purpose of the award, they are also being recognized for preserving artistic traditions; promoting art as a viable economic industry; and for representing the best of traditional arts throughout the state of North Carolina.

Bringle is recognized as among the finest potters and respected teachers in ceramics, and her influence on her field and other potters stretches around the world. Born in 1939 in Memphis, Tenn., Bringle is considered one of the leading artists working in her field. She studied both painting and pottery at the Memphis Academy of Art, where she earned a BFA. She later received her MFA from Alfred University in New York.

Schulman was born in New York City in 1924 and remained in the city to receive a diploma from Parsons School of Design and attend New York University, where he earned his BS in Art. He later received his MFA in ceramics from Alfred University, where he held teaching and research fellowships. With that degree in 1958, he changed from his work in design as a packaging engineer for an aircraft company to his career in ceramics, which, in addition to his studio work, included Professor and Head of Ceramics and Glass at Rhode Island School of Design and Head of Ceramics at Ohio State University.

The North Carolina Living Treasures 2009: Cynthia Bringle and Norman Schulman exhibit will be on display through Jan. 10.

For more information, visit www.southernhighlandsguild.org or call 828.298.7928.