Granby Living June 2018 issue

CELEBRATING OUR SENIORS
AVIS AKERS CHERICHETTI OF HONEY HILL POTTERY:
Forty-four fruitful years in Granby...and counting
By Sarah Merrill
Avis Akers Cherichetti and her husband Lou have lived in Granby since 1974, but Avis notes
that it wasn’t until the 1990s that her identity in town became “The Pottery Lady.” These days,
many Granby residents associate Avis with her Honey Hill Pottery studio, located in their home
on Barndoor Hills Road. But over her 44 years in Granby, Avis has had a diverse range of roles and
interests, including significant involvement in the 4-H program and raising four children.
Avis was born in 1942 — the third of four girls — in a small town in western Kentucky. When
she was 10, her family moved to Dalton, Georgia. When Avis attended college at Stetson University
in DeLand, Florida in the early 1960s, she had difficulty settling on a major.
“Everything I did was interesting,” she chuckles. “You could say I lacked focus.” But that changed
when Avis took her first pottery course. “That was it,” she says. “I was smitten.”
Unfortunately, Stetson had no fine arts program. Knowing that she could not focus her studies
on pottery, Avis left the university, moving to Chicago at age 19. She worked at Chicago’s National
Design Center, and in the evenings she attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as a
non-matriculating student.
She studied pottery with a few diverse professors, including one of the best in glaze theory. In
addition, Avis worked for a potter in Evanston, Illinois, and in this role she met many talented
potters.
Avis also met Lou Cherichetti, who came to Chicago after working as a civil engineer on the
construction of Hartford’s Constitution Plaza. Lou and Avis married in 1965 and moved to East
Granby, not far from where Lou grew up in Longmeadow, Massachusetts.
Avis had a pottery studio in their home and she taught individuals and small groups. She sold
her work at many craft fairs, including one of the very first American Craft Council shows. “That
kind of show got way beyond me — I had kids instead,” she says.
In 1974, Lou and Avis — with four children under the age of 10 — decided they wanted “real
country living.” They bought an old Granby house on 15 acres of land and named the property
Honey Hill Farm, reflecting Lou’s many years of beekeeping. The original house was built in the
1760s.
“We didn’t think we wanted an old home,” explains Avis. “But this place turned out to be just
right for us.”
The move to Granby marked a 16-year pause in Avis’ pottery career. Their Granby home lacked
space for a pottery studio, but more to the point, Avis had four young children. “Lou and I had no
idea what happens — exponentially — when you have four children,” says Avis. “But every stage
was so much fun.”
Avis Cherichetti in her
Granby pottery studio, 2018.
Avis and Lou Cherichetti with their four children,
Granby, CT, circa 1980.
In addition to being a hands-on mother, Avis
was essentially a farmer for several years.
“My children were very involved with the
4-H Club,” she notes. “At some point in the
1980s, I made an official count and we had 150
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10 | JUNE 2018