Courtney Long received her BFA from West Virginia University in 1999.   On two separate study abroad trips in 1998 and 2000; she studied traditional stoneware and porcelain techniques across China.   She received a MFA from Syracuse University in 2004 and interned at the Everson Museum of Art, co-coordinating “100 years of American Ceramics”, exhibited at the Paine Webber Gallery, New York, NY.

She has continued educational experiences from Penland School of Crafts, Penland, North Carolina, Santa Fe Clay, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Anderson Ranch in Trelawney, Jamaica, and Art School of the Aegean, Samos, Greece, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

In 2005, she was appointed Western Piedmont Community College’s Professional Crafts Coordinator, located in Morganton, North Carolina.  Courtney oversees all continuing education and curriculum coursework in Wood, Clay, and Sculpture. These programs offer crafts marketing and enterprise courses in addition to a vast array of studio courses.

In 2009, Courtney was named a GlaxoSmithKline fellow with NC State University’s Institute for Emerging Issues.  The fellowship was designed to work on economic development through “creativity.” She collaborates with several local business, community leaders and non-profits to revitalize and expand Burke County’s placed-based crafts economy and in the process, organized the county’s first artist incubator located in Drexel, North Carolina.

Courtney is the recipient of several grants including a North Carolina Blue Ridge Heritage Grant.  She is the founder of the Joara Pottery festival, a fundraiser to support the Exploring Joara Foundation that sponsors public involvement in foothills archaeology.

Courtney lives and pots on a horse farm located in the Chesterfield community with her husband and daughter; horse Rosie, and two Blue Heelers.    She enjoys watching her pets and wildlife on the farm turning them into personal icons symbolizing moments or moods in her life.