Well, it's a hidden folk art studio/gift shop tucked away in the Appalachian Mountains of Central Pennsylvania. Featuring vintage and new items, odd stuff, and hand-crafted work by Dar, a distinguishably obscure native Pennsylvania artisan, House of Mud is chock-full of hand-crafted goods; and a Christmas corner too! If you're in the Central PA area, stop on by to see just what gems lay hidden in
the nooks and crannies of this House of Mud. 3676 Cold Storage Road, New Bloomfield, PA 17068
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The History of House of Mud
(as told by Dar):
"After my first long, snow-filled winter up in the Appalachian Mountains of Tioga County, PA, I knew I needed a lot of something to do. So, I took a few pottery classes and the name for the studio was thrown at me - literally. The studio, as well as myself, was splattered with mud after every wheel session. I call my work in the beginning my 'Fred Flintstone' era. Things weren't turning out quite exactly the way that I wanted them to, so I ditched the wheel and started to experiment with low-firing clays until I found what worked for me. "At first, I just made assorted roses w/thorned stems; selling them at county fairs and the like. Then I moved onto something a little different - the santas. A few families of black bears used to walk through my yard, so I decided to try squeezing out some bears from clay. Around 1997, my creations and I moved down to another section of the Appalachians - Perry County, PA; which leads us to today, almost 20 years later. I now have an art-studio filled with my clay work and other various mediums (not just clay), as well as a few others' work, and my hand-sculpted and painted black bears have traveled around the world (to at least 7 countries that I know of). So stop on by, and don't worry, you won't get any mud on your shoes."
