Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts invites visitors to their 54-acre campus for the 25th annual Salad Days, a celebration of local food and handcrafted ceramics. This art-and-craft-filled festival features a picnic lunch that guests enjoy on handmade ceramic plates they can keep.

2019 Salad Days Artist Dehmie Dehmlow has created more than 550 earthenware plates to choose from. The painterly surfaces of her pieces give the sense that you’re eating from a work of art. “I enjoy researching and looking at contemporary paintings, as well as a range of 20th century paintings,” Dehmlow explains. “I start my plate designs in a painterly way, creating layers while thinking about proportion, line, and color.”

The salad buffet is also a creative masterpiece. During the event, visitors feast on dozens of delicious dishes prepared by Watershed’s skilled chefs or donated by area restaurants.

To mark this milestone Salad Days, Watershed Center has invited the artists who have made the plates for previous festivals back to campus for the celebration. These Salad Days Artist alumni have made new, reimagined versions of their original Salad Days plates. A limited number of the new works will be available for purchase in the Invitational Pottery Sale alongside additional work by artists from Maine and around the country.

In addition to getting a fabulous lunch and handcrafted plate, visitors will have the opportunity to watch pottery demonstrations by master ceramic artists, tour Watershed’s grounds and historic art studios, listen to live music by Jerks of Grass, and win fabulous ceramic pieces in the art raffle.

Pots on Wheels!, a mobile clay education project that brings pottery lessons to communities around New England, will offer visitors a chance to try their hand at creating with clay. Other participating non-profits include the Maine Craft Association, The Craft Emergency Relief Fund (cerf+), and Studio Potter magazine.

Funds raised during Salad Days support Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts’ community education and residency programs for clay artists. Admission is $40 and includes the meal and a handcrafted plate. Visitors only attending the pottery sale are admitted free.

“Salad Days connects talented artists from near and far with the Midcoast community, and is generously supported by many local restaurants, farms, and businesses,” explains Francine Rudoff, Watershed’s executive director. “We’re especially grateful to this year’s lead sponsors: Lacoste/Keane Gallery, Laguna Clay Company, and Ames True Value Hardware.”

Salad Days will be held on Saturday, July 13 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, located at 19 Brick Hill Road in Newcastle. The campus opens at 10:45 a.m. and ticketing will begin at 11 a.m.

For directions to Watershed and details on Salad Days, visit http://www.watershedceramics.org/events/salad-days/