A sculpture dedicated to the memory of local potter Justin Allman has been installed at The Village Green in Cashiers.
Standing near the Cashiers crossroads in The Village Green is a new sculpture dedicated to a late local potter who touched the lives of many budding artists in town before his passing in 2021.
Justin Chaundy Allman was a potter and became friends with anyone new to Cashiers, especially those wanting to create art on the Highlands-Cashiers Plateau.
The Chicago native was the son of Judith C. Dixon and Richard P. Allman, and he graduated from Naples High School and Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor’s degree in history and a minor in art. Justin Allman passed away due to COVID-19 in late 2021.
He taught history for a brief period in the Naples school system before he decided to “stop pursuing the dreams of others” and follow his calling to create art for the world, a statement in Allman’s obituary said. His artistic passion led him to Cashiers, and he shaped that passion into a business called Fire Moss Pottery.
“Justin was a vital part of the local art community in Cashiers,” a statement in Allman’s obituary said. “He became active in Cashiers [Area] Chamber of Commerce and was a member of the Rotary Club [of the Cashiers Valley] where he was previously honored as ‘Man of the Year.’”
Allman was president of the Jackson County Art Council and started an event called “Pots on the Green” for Cashiers to raise funds for the care of The Village Green.
“In addition to his personal endeavors, Allman and several local artists formed a collective called ‘De La Rocher,’ an initiative to elevate local opportunities for local artists to sell large scale, exclusive work and create a new avenue for artists, painters, sculptors, and photographers in Western North Carolina,” the obituary said.
Visitors to this past weekend’s Cashiers Valley Leaf Festival at The Village Green saw a new statue in Allman’s honor, a 3D-printed replica of one of his works containing an owl stalking two rabbits and some flora local to the region.
Wesley Wofford, a Cashiers sculptor who has worked on other pieces such as a tribute to Harriet Tubman that was commissioned by the city of Philadelphia and a similar sculpture for the Town of Franklin, worked on the tribute to Allman with The Village Green Executive Director Ashlie Mitchell and Allman’s mother.
“Justin Allman was really an incredible friend to The Village Green to begin with, and Justin began Pots on the Green, and that happened over 2018 and 2019,” Mitchell said. “He was just a really compassionate and passionate person. He was a younger person, and his parents had property here, and they had a gorgeous home, and so he decided to move here full time and devote his full attention to really renewing and allowing budding artists to be able to come to Cashiers and showcase what they do.”
Mitchell said Justin Allman was a dear friend and added she treasured the friendship she had with him.
“He had a real passion just to make sure that artists were able to come to Cashiers and be exposed,” Mitchell said. “A lot of times, I think it takes a long time for an artist to be able to get recognition at this level and at this caliber with individuals who have the capacity to really begin a new artist’s career and also to appreciate what a new artist can bring.”
Allman’s mission, Mitchell said, was not only to create his own art but it was also to help other people springboard into a new stratosphere of success.
The sculpture is located near the gazebo on the U.S. 64 side of The Village Green next to the Cashiers crossroads.
It was picked by Allman’s mother following his passing, and Wofford went to work on bringing it to life as a bigger piece to memorialize the late artist.
As people walk around the bronze memorial, they will begin to see a barn owl, two rabbits, and local flora carved into the piece to represent what Allman saw in Cashiers. The sculpture resembles a lantern, has a white powder coating as its finish, and can be lit from the inside to illuminate a pattern.
“I had known Justin since he moved here, since he bought his house, and we were both working artists so there was a connection there,” Wofford said. “The last conversation I had with before he got sick was actually at the Leaf Festival here, and he had a booth, and we were talking about the evolution of his work. He was talking about how he moved his work into the public realm, and he was talking about how he had done a couple of larger sculptures, larger totems that were on sale at his booth. We had an entire conversation about everything from smaller ceramics to larger pieces.”
Allman was influenced by Korean pottery and carving, Wofford said, and he blended a few disciplines to create a unique style.
Wofford said it made sense to turn a sculpture in Allman’s honor into something he was trying to accomplish during his lifetime.
“We took his original vase and cyber-scanned it, enlarged, 3D printed that, and cast it in bronze,” Wofford said. “It is something I would have done with him, and it was probably the next step of our conversation, and here is a way you can achieve that. If you make something that is large and in a public space, it’s fragile. For me, the spirit of him is in this piece because this is where he wanted to go.”
Before his passing, his last wish was to bequest The Village Green with an arts endowment that can be donated to by anyone in the community. That continues his legacy of bringing up and coming artists to Cashiers.
“What we hope that will grow into is, other nonprofits like the Cashiers School of the Arts, the Highlands-Cashiers Arts Council, the Bascom, the funds that Justin left us is an invested fund so we do get dividends on an annual basis that we can reinvest into annual festivals like the Leaf Festival,” Mitchell said. “We do have some very brand-new vendors here and this is an example of what it can fund. His endowment for the arts is something that we can use to partner with organizations and, we’re not the authority on art here, but that is part of our mission to enrich the lives of those who live in Cashiers through artistic and cultural … those are two words in our mission.”
As for why the memorial is white instead of bronze, each of Allman’s lanterns, vases, and other works were white ceramic.
“We’ve tried to make this an intimate spot to where people can explore it and walk around the entirety of the piece and explore all it has to offer,” Mitchell said. “I’m so glad this is the one that Judy chose.”