Cely’s House Creative Workshops
Meet Cely Chicurel !
Cely is a native of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and part of a very artistic family. Her parents, Joel and Eleanor Carter, encouraged her early on to pursue a career in teaching and the arts. She spent many hours in the family kitchen working with clay and, before too long, was showing her wares at Carolina Friends School and Apple Chill art fairs.
Her formal education includes art and design at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Cely holds a Bachelor of Science degree from East Tennessee State University with a major in pottery and weaving. She has completed further study at Penland and Arrowmont schools of arts and crafts.
As a Girl Scout leader, YMCA and Christian Service art camp director, Cely has had much experience
in teaching and working with children and adults of all ages. She has held her own Summer Arts
Experience Day Camps for over 15 years, creating a large following of students and parents,
many of whom she helped and encouraged along artistic paths. Studio birthday parties and
adult pottery workshops joined the ranks of events designed to fill any request.
Cely’s love of nature and the created world is joined with an interest in using the
imagination to create fun, new worlds. For more than 30 years, she has made
and sold pottery creations, castles, and fantasy creations. Although production
pottery is no longer part of her activities, Cely still has a passion for
teaching and sharing her love of pottery and the arts as a means of
self-expression.
In 2001, Cely received a Master of Christian Ministry degree from
Duke Divinity School and has added a new dimension of art and
spiritual retreat to her growing list of offerings. With the latest
addition of Cely’s House afterschool arts program,
she is able to teach and mentor children in both
academic and creative areas.
