Chapel Hill couple collects pottery and memories

Betty Neese didn’t include the little pots behind the tub when she counted her collection.

With more than 125 pieces of fine pottery decorating every available surface in every room of her home, 79-year-old Neese just got tired of counting.

A friend bought Neese her first piece of pottery from Jugtown, a pottery shop and store near Seagrove, N.C., in the early 1980s.

Since then, Neese, who lives at 109 Carolina Ave. with her husband, Perry Colwell, has added pieces from all over the world.

The majority of her collection comes from North Carolina.

“It’s so tactile,” she said. “You can feel it and turn it around, and it changes direction. It changes beauty.”

Next Thursday, the couple is leaving for a riverboat tour of the Danube River that will go through Germany and end in Budapest.

“We wanted to see as much of the world as we could,” she said.

Neese has pots from Chile, Romania, China, Greece and the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, just to name a few.

Neese and Colwell have traveled to almost every continent, mostly through Smithsonian tours.

Neese recalled seeing 1,500 penguins in Patagonia, Chile, and pointed out her pictures of Iguazu Falls, located on the border of Brazil and Argentina, hanging on her wall.

Every wall, shelf or windowsill reminds Neese of a story from her travels — like the time she nearly ran into a tiger while driving through Kenya and Tanzania, or when she visited each of the United Arab Emirates, or when she rode through Guatemala on the backs of her sons’ motorcycles.

“We’ve given up two-wheelers, but we’ve got a couple of sidecar units out there,” she said. “Once a motorcyclist, always a motorcyclist.”

Colwell said he has three motorcycles, two of which are antiques that he maintains.

Neese said she is starting to consider what to do with her pots after she dies but has not made any decisions yet.

She plans to have them appraised in order to insure them, as she doesn’t know the full value of her collection.

“I don’t have a clue,” she said. “I’ll probably be shocked.”

As a local expert in folk pottery, Charles “Terry” Zug, retired UNC English professor and chairman of the curriculum in folklore, will do the appraisal.

Before retiring and beginning her collection, Neese worked for AT&T Inc. in New York City — where she met Colwell in the early 1980s.

“It was an office romance,” Neese said. “He will tell you that we kissed in the elevator. We were old people, but still.”

Neese’s love of art and beauty pervades the home. In addition to pots on every table, each bedroom displays her own handiwork with colorful quilts spread across the beds.

Neese has made 20 quilts, including one that she teases Colwell about.

“I made a special quilt for my husband,” she said. “I made it as lightweight as it could be, but he tells me that it bothers his feet, so I folded that up and put it away.

“It’s a beautiful quilt made out of Indonesian fabric. It’s light as a feather.”

Neese is devoted to her collection, cleaning each of the pots twice a year, in spring and fall.

“Oftentimes I turn everything around,” she said. “I love the colors, I love the people who make the pots, but I love to feel them.”

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