COMMON CLAY
The History of Folk Pottery in North Carolina, South Carolina & Georgia
COMMON CLAY The History of Folk Pottery in North Carolina, South Carolina & Georgia
2017 By Annamarie Kistler Publication accompanies the Common Clay exhibition Georgia Southern University, 2017 GeorgiaSouthern.edu/CAT
Cover: Two Faced, Don Craig, 2001 Photography by Brandon Kilgore Design by Courtney Bonacci
SMITH CALLAWAY BANKS
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Smith Callaway Banks (1936—2010) | Photo courtesy of the Banks Family
Statesboro native Smith Callaway Banks fell in love with folk art after purchasing his first face jug in the 1980s. Over time, Banks’s collection grew to a little over 1,000 pieces of folk art. In 2006, Banks generously donated about 250 pieces of folk pottery and 250 two-dimensional works to Georgia Southern University. This collection is housed and displayed at the University’s Center for Art and Theatre. The Smith Callaway Banks Southern Folk Art collection does not just pay tribute to the creative artists native to Georgia and the Carolinas. Artists from Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Texas also are represented. Banks cherished his hometown of Statesboro and devoted his life to preserving its history and community. He was the president of the city dairy, owner of Smith Banks Antiques, and was both a founder and a leader of the Bulloch County Historical Society. Banks also was a curator and a board member of the Georgia Southern University Museum. The Common Clay exhibition, and catalog is comprised of what he called his “uglies and whimsies.”
While working at Georgia Southern University as the collections manager, I quickly became interested in the Smith Callaway Banks Southern Folk Art Collection. Folk Art pottery is unusual, elaborate, whimsical and sometimes creepy. I wanted to learn more about the pottery and explore the significance of the University’s collection.
Common Clay is a tribute to the potters’ long, unbroken devotion to their work. The works in this catalog and the exhibition tell the stories of the potter families who adapted to economic and social developments in the 20th century, to shape their work from once essential household items to now valued and collected folk art. Southern Folk Pottery owes its survival to the potters’ desire to preserve a way of life in which pottery making was fully integrated.
Annamarie Kistler
FROM THE AUTHOR
North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina have a rich folk art history. In this catalog and the accompanying exhibition, I examine the historical importance and the changing role of folk pottery in the South. Each state has contributed to folk pottery with rich family histories and unique traditions. Through my research I discovered the region has a more blended history where potter families from each state had a notable influence on each other.
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Log Vase with Blue Bird and Grapes, David Meaders
Brown Face Jug with Tongue, Mike Hanning
INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS FOLK POTTERY?
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• It’s all in the name. The word “folk” means having unknown origins and reflecting the traditional forms of a society. • Folk pottery is known for its face jugs, roosters, monkey jugs, ring jugs, and more whimsies. • Each piece is unique. Nothing is commercially manufactured. • Folk potters use traditional, 19th century methods to create their pieces. They use groundhog kilns and local clay.
• Traditional folk potters do not typically have a formal art education. Instead, their knowledge is passed to them by a relative or friend. • Folk pottery traditions and practices have continued through Clay Clans, families that have continued making pottery for generations. For these families, pottery making is an art, but it is also a business. The only thing that has changed is the market.
MIGRATION OF SOUTHERN POTTER FAMILIES: 1800s–1900s The Craven, Hewell, Ferguson, and Brown families are four of the most prominent and influential potter families in the Southeast. As these families grew and migrated, they carried important ideas, traditions, and techniques with them. Those ideas helped influence work throughout the region.
Catawba Valley
Seagrove Center
Western Center
Edgefield District Coweta County
The Craven Family migrated from Seagrove, N.C., to White County, Ga., in 1825. The family moved to Hall County, Ga., in 1971.
Hewell Family
The Hewell Family worked in Edgefield, S.C., before migrating to Hall County, Ga., in the 1880s, where the family remains today.
Before the 20th century, Southern potters produced primarily utilitarian work — jugs, bowls, vases. However the new century, brought about social and economic changes that changed the nature of pottery. The Great Depression, Prohibition, industrial progression, and the mass production of glass jars, kitchenware, and factory canned foods caused a significant drop in utilitarian pottery sales. Suddenly, potters had to change the product or change professions.
Hall County
Craven Family
EVOLUTION OF FOLK POTTERY
Ferguson Family
The Fergusons migrated from the Edgefield District, S.C., to Barrow County, Ga., in 1846. Today the family pottery is located in Hall County, Ga.
Brown Family
The Browns migrated to Coweta County, Ga., in the early 1800s. In 1860, the family moved to Pike County, Ga. The family later moved to Buncombe County, N.C. Where they remain today. Other Brown family potters moved west into Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas.
With a heightened desire to get away from the industrious North and visit the romanticized South, Northerners sought the “Southern” souvenir. Tourism combined with The Arts and Crafts Movement, and Colonial Revival inspired potters to begin experimenting with glazes and ornamental design to sell their wares.
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NORTH CAROLINA 8
North Carolina pottery is among the most highly prized in the world. Chatham County potter Mark Hewitt summed it up perfectly when he wrote, “As theater is to Broadway, pottery is a treasured manifestation of North Carolina.”1
Jug with Snake Through the Handle, Gary Mitchell
The state has three primary, pottery-producing areas, and the traditions that arose in each of the three centers have survived and continue to prosper today. These areas include Seagrove, the eastern center located in Randolph and Moore Counties, the Catawba Valley in Catawba and Lincoln Counties, and Buncombe County in the mountains near Ashville.2 David M. Egner, “Pottery,” NCPedia, accessed November 5, 2016, http://ncpedia.org/pottery. Barry Huffman, Catawba Clay: Contemporary Southern Face Jug Makers (Hickory: A.W. Huffman, 1997), 13. 1
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Small Face Jug Set, Sandy Cole, 2003
“As theater is to Broadway, pottery is a treasured manifestation of North Carolina.” Mark Hewitt, potter Chatham County, North Carolina
In the Western Center and Catawba Valley, potters sold directly to the tourists from their shops and local stores. “Travelers were open to a range of things to preserve, think of as southern, and take home on their trips north. Perhaps above all, they wanted things that seemed old and genuine.”3 These potters added ornamentations to their pieces such as snakes and faces to fit this expectation. The potters of Seagrove took a different approach to art pottery than their western counterparts. Instead of providing the unusual whimsies, Seagrove potters concentrated on colorful tableware and used wholesalers to distribute their work around the country. Anthony Stanonis, Dixie Emporium: Tourism, Foodways, and Consumer Culture in the American South (Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2008), 21.
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BUNCOMBE COUNTY: THE BROWN FAMILY The Brown family potters are an American treasure, whose Southern history reaches back to a time when alkaline-glaze stoneware was first produced in Edgefield, South Carolina by the Landrum family potters. The Brown family potters opened their shop in Buncombe County in 1923 and were the first to introduce the face vessel to the state. They sold face vessels, or face jugs, to tourists and to local businesses such as hardware stores. These stores would place them in the windows to draw attention of passersby. The Browns also added horns to their face jugs, introducing the popular devil jug which reflects fundamentalist religious views. The family still operates shops in Buncombe today.
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Brown Crunched Face Man, Lewis Brown, 2001
Chicken Candle Holders, Charles Moore, 2001
SEAGROVE: TABLEWARE, JUGTOWN, OWEN & COLE FAMILIES Between 1900 and 1950, family potteries like the Coles and the Owens were joined by entrepreneurs who supplied marketing strategies and the willingness and ability to reach the outside world. Magazines and tourists provided ideas for changes in the appearance and types of new ware. Potters responded with work that was suitable for Cape Cod-style houses and Arts and Crafts-style bungalows that filled suburbs. “While the architecture and furniture recalled aspects of a shared, generic American past, wares from North Carolina were truly local, with authentic historical roots.” 4
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Charlotte Vestal Brown, The Remarkable Potters of Seagrove: Folk Pottery of a Legendary North Carolina Community (New York: Lark Books, 2006), 58.
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JUGTOWN & OWEN FAMILY POTTERY When Raleigh, North Carolina art lovers Juliana and Jacques Busbee married in 1910, they could not have known they would be responsible for establishing one of the largest and most successful art pottery businesses in the southeast. It began in 1915 when Juliana was acting as a juror for the Davidson County Fair in Lexington. There she found orange-glazed pie plates from the local hardware store. After returning home to Jacques, these pie plates fired their imagination to become art dealers for Seagrove-area pottery, changing their lives forever. Green Flat Jug with Smiling Face, Sid Luck, 2000 The Frogskin glaze, seen here, is largely used by Seagrove-area potters.
Seagrove potters did not start making face vessels until the 1980s due to the attention Burlon Craig was getting in the Catawba Valley.
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After setting up a deal with a supplier, J.H. Owen, they moved to New York where they sold Owen’s pieces in The Village Store in Greenwich Village. Thanks to Juliana’s marketing skills, the shop was successful. “The shop’s interior was an evocation of the Colonial Revival architecture and interior design in vogue at the time.”5 Even though business was good, shipments were unpredictable, so in 1922 the Busbees moved to Seagrove. They built a shop with a dirt floor, two kick wheels, and a cast iron stove. They named this simple establishment Jugtown Pottery. Around this time, J.H. Owen died and the Busbees hired Ben Owen (J.H.’s nephew). “Ben Owen’s collaboration with the Busbees was magical, explosive, profound, and powerful. Owen was the master potter interpreting, exploring, and expanding the Busbee vision—one that was for the most part profitable enough to enable Jugtown to weather the Great Depression and World War II.”6
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IBID, 43. IBID, 45.
The Busbees wanted Ben to be inspired by simplicity and Asian pottery. They took him to New York’s museums to introduce Ben to 16th and 17th century Chinese, Korean, and even earlier ceramic traditions. Ben experimented with glazes with funky Southern names like tobacco spit and frogskin. Ultimately, Jugtown helped bring buyers, collectors, and tourists to the Seagrove area, enabling the pottery traditions to survive. Jugtown and the Owen family still operate today.
Green Face Man, Sid Luck, 1997 The Tobacco Spit glaze, seen here, is a traditional Southern Folk Art glaze.
OWEN FAMILY Ben Owen spent the last years of his career establishing his own pottery business called Old Plank Road Pottery. He continued to create pieces inspired by the Busbee’s vision but also began experimenting and creating new glazes. The results were similar to work he created with the Busbees, but with a unique new style. After Ben’s death, other Owen potters, such as J.H. Owen’s son M.L. Owens, kept Old Plank Road Pottery in operation by producing traditional dinnerware.* The Owens family pottery business, now called The Owens Original Pottery, continues to operate today and is run by Boyd Owens (son of M.L. Owens). Orange Two Teeth Jug, M.L. Owens
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Over the years, the Owen family added an “s” to their surname.
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COLE POTTERY In 1922, the Cole family potters opened their new place off a tattered dirt road in Seagrove. J.B. Cole, the owner, understood that marketing was essential if they were going to make the successful transition to art pottery. The Cole’s took a religious approach, and it worked.
Sleepy Face Jug, Heather Gwinn, 2003 Gwinn is a tenth-generation Cole Potter.
“Pottery is no new art; it is the oldest art that we have any record of today. The art of pottery comes to us through the Bible.” 7
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Associating their pieces with antiquity and including Bible passages in their catalogs helped the business to flourish. Historian James Twitchell contended that this strategy worked because it allowed buyers to associate meaning with their purchase.8 The Cole family invented the Rebecca Pitcher, named from the Biblical illustration of the story of Rebecca at the well. The Rebecca Pitcher features a long looped handle and is still a prominent form of Seagrove. The Coles created the Sunset Mountain Pottery wholesale line. “Three Asheville businessmen, Hugh C. Brown, Edwin Brown, and W.H. Lashley, sold handcrafted items as part of a wholesale and retail business that had begun in an Asheville hardware store.”9 The business grew into three shops, The Treasure Chest, Log Cabin, and Three Mountaineers. A Three Mountaineers sales brochure proclaimed that “Pottery making is generally conceded to be about the oldest art known to man … no hint of a ‘machined’ look to the shapes … these features appeal to those who appreciate the artistry and innate character of real craftsmanship.”10 The Coles produced between 30,000 and 50,000 pieces annually between 1920 and 1950, and the family name is still creating pottery today. 7 Charlotte Vestal Brown, The Remarkable Potters of Seagrove: The Folk Pottery of a Legendary North Carolina Community (New York: Lark Books, 2006), 50. 8 James Twitchell, Lead Us Into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 12. 9 Charlotte Vestal Brown, The Remarkable Potters of Seagrove: The Folk Pottery of a Legendary North Carolina Community (New York: Lark Books, 2006), 53. 10 IBID.
Swirled Face Jug, Burlon Craig
THE CATAWBA VALLEY: SWIRL PATTERN The Catawba potters introduced the swirl pattern. This new style combined two colors of clay turned together producing a distinctive striped ware. The bands of contrasting clay swirled up the vessel on a diagonal. Potters guarded information about their swirl techniques, sometimes smoothing the bottoms of pieces to prevent other potters from discovering production secrets. To this day the swirl pattern remains indicative of Catawba Valley pottery. The difficult procedure often permits an extra charge for the ware, and continues to be popular among tourists and collectors.
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BURLON CRAIG By the end of World War II, the pottery traditions that originated in the Catawba Valley 100 years earlier were losing steam and on the verge of extinction. “Burlon [Craig] had been introduced to pottery making when he was 14 years old by Jim Lynn, a life-long potter.”11 Craig worked for various potters in the area through the late 1930s. When he returned home from the war, Burlon purchased land and pottery-making equipment from one of the famous Reinhardt potters and began operating his own shop. In the 1970s there was a renewed interest in handmade crafts, stimulated by the United States’ bicentennial. It was then that Craig’s work became highly sought after. The Mint Museum featured Craig’s work in the first Catawba Valley pottery exhibit in 1980. “Dr. Charles Zug, a professor of English Folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, began a research project on North Carolina pottery. He was amazed to find an active potter using 19th century methods.”12 Possibly inspired by the successful Brown family in Buncombe, Craig began applying snakes and faces to his pieces guaranteeing a kiln sell-out. Throughout the 1980s, home magazines and books featured Craig’s work in their publications selling the rustic American craft décor. In 1984, he was awarded the National Folk Heritage Award by the National Endowment of the Arts. Craig died in 2009. His children, grandchildren, and former students continue his work.
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Barry Huffman, Catawba Clay: Contemporary Southern Face Jug Makers (Hickory: A.W. Huffman, 1997), 15. IBID.
Swirled Face Jug, Walter Fleming
Brown Devil Pitcher, Albert Hodge
Brown and White Swirl Vase, Charlie Lisk
Burlon Craig’s work inspired a new generation of traditional Catawba pottery-making. His students include Charlie Lisk, Richard Kale, Walter Flemming, Gary Mitchell, and Albert Hodge.
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SOUTH CAROLINA
Green Monkey Jug, Bozman Maker, 2000
South Carolina’s history of folk pottery is a mysterious one. Oddly, their story does not cover a large area like it does in North Carolina and Georgia, but just a small location called the Edgefield district. In west-central South Carolina, across the Savannah River from Augusta, Georgia, this area encompasses what is now Edgefield, Aiken, and Greenwood Counties.
John A. Burrison, “South Carolina’s Edgefield District: An Early International Crossroads of Clay,” American Studies Journal, no. 56 (2012): accessed April 10, 2015, http://www.asjournal.org/56-2012/south-carolinas-edgefielddistrict-an-early-international-crossroads-of-clay/.
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The first documented potteries in this district are Dr. Abner Landrum’s Pottersville Stoneware Manufactory and that of his brother, John Landrum, on Horse Creek.13 Interestingly, their father Samuel is known to have been associated with North Carolina potters before settling in Edgefield in the late 1700s. This reveals the possibility that Samuel was influenced or even taught by early North Carolinian settlers. Edgefield, South Carolina is credited with being the first to use alkaline-glaze stoneware in the United States and with introducing the popular folk pottery form, the face jug. While few operating potteries remain in the Edgefield district, it will forever be known for its extraordinary contribution to American stoneware pottery.
INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCES & THE FACE JUG CONTROVERSY There are many international influences on the basic ceramic forms that came from the Edgefield district. The basic lug-handled jars resemble those of Scotland and Northern England. Other forms, such as a water jug with a stirrup-shaped handle across the top and two angled spouts on either side of the handle, was unknown in Britain but was common in Mediterranean Europe and Africa.14 In the South, it was known by the AfroCaribbean name “monkey jug.” These monkey jugs are commonplace in Southern Folk Pottery. Finally, there is evidence to suggest that the alkaline glaze was first used in China during the Han Dynasty. This suggests someone was exposed to the Chinese practice before bringing it to the United States. African slaves working in Pottersville created the first face jugs in Edgefield, South Carolina. Scholars argue whether these African Slaves were inspired by their own culture or by the English to create face vessels. Selected sources such as John Michael Vlach’s By the Work of Their Hands: Studies in African American Folklife make convincing arguments that African slaves were indeed the first to make the face vessels, and that African culture influenced their forms. Others such as Mark Newell and Peter Lenzo’s Making Faces: Archaeological Evidence of African American Face Jug Production, posit that English Toby jugs inspired African slaves. It’s possible they were influenced by both practices. IBID. Jill Beute Koverman, “The Ceramic Works of David Drake, aka, Dave the Potter or Dave the Salve of Edgefield, South Carolina,” The University of South Carolina Scholar Commons 13, no. 1 (2005): 83-98. 14
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Large Ears, BR Holcombe, 2001
DAVE THE SLAVE In 1800, a boy of African descent was born into slavery in the Edgefield District. Named Dave, he grew up in Pottersville.15 Over the course of his life, Dave had several masters including Dr. Abner Landrum. Dave was one of seventy-six known enslaved African and African-American men and women who worked in this district’s twelve pottery factories during the antebellum period. Dave’s work is the most identifiable because he wrote the date and/or signed his name on his vessels. He also often wrote poems on his pieces. His tremendous skill, strength, and literacy allowed Dave to make a permanent mark in history.
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Red Devil Jug, Jerry Brown
BROWN FAMILY FACE JUG LEGACY Today, after practicing a pottery-making tradition for about two centuries, there is hardly a Southern state found where a Brown family potter has not worked.
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The face jug form, as we know it in the folk art realm, originated in the Edgefield district of South Carolina in the early 19th century. The relationship between the early Edgefield face jugs and the face jugs that appeared sporadically throughout the South has remained unclear for years. However, it is possible that the answer lies in the post-Civil War migration patterns of the Brown family potters.
After the Civil War, potters working in the Edgefield District of South Carolina scattered across the South looking for work. Among those potters was Cyrus Cogburn and Abraham Massey who moved to Washington County, Georgia and Matthew Duncan who moved to Coweta County, Georgia. These potters were among the first to introduce the Edgefield alkaline-glaze stoneware to the state of Georgia. According to the 1830 and 1840 census records, potter Bolin C. Brown lived close to Matthew Duncan.16 It has also been documented that Bolin Brown made alkalineglazed stoneware in Coweta County.17 Because Duncan and Brown were neighbors and both potters, it is possible that Duncan introduced Brown to the face jug form, and to the alkalineglaze stoneware. If this connection is true, it would tie the Browns to the most distinctive Southern contribution to American ceramic history —the fabrication of alkaline-glaze stoneware.18 After Brown married, he moved his pottery business to the Atlanta area. His descendants continued the stoneware pottery making trade as they slowly filtered throughout the South. In the early 1920s, a few Brown family potters worked with Cheever Meaders in White County, Georgia. At this point in time, Meaders was making purely utilitarian wares, unlike neighboring potters from North Carolina. It is possible that Brown family potters introduced Meaders to the face jug form. Meaders’ son Lanier Meaders would later become popular for his face jugs. This line of the Brown family soon moved to Buncombe County, North Carolina where they continue to operate today.
Big Nose Face Jug, Jerry Brown
16 Stephen C. Compton, A Handed Down Art: The Brown Family Potters (North Carolina: North Carolina Pottery Center, 2015), 13. 17 IBID, 14. 18 IBID, 16.
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GEORGIA
Georgia is the folk art child of South Carolina and North Carolina. Through the 19th century, in the days before mass-produced ware, potters settled around naturally occurring clay deposits, creating numerous “jugtowns” of a dozen shops or more.
Churn with Loop and Strap Handles, Cheever Meaders
Loop and Strap Handle Jug, Cheever Meaders
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John A. Burrison, “Folk Pottery,” New Georgia Encyclopedia, (2005): accessed April 11, 2015, http://www. georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/folk-pottery. 20 IBID 21 John Burrison, Brothers in clay: The Story of Georgia Folk Pottery (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1983), 43. 19
Folk pottery in Georgia began in the early 1800s when potters from the Carolinas migrated there and introduced the stoneware practice, salt glaze, and alkaline glaze. In the 1820s, associates of the Landrums from South Carolina settled in Washington County, which became Georgia’s first pottery center.19 Also in the 1820s, the oldest northeast Georgia pottery was established by potters of the Davidson, Craven, and Dorsey families of North Carolina. This pottery center, known as Mossy Creek, is now home to the famous Meaders family pottery, launched in 1893. In 1847, another associate of Landrum, Charles Ferguson, opened Jug Factory in present-day Barrow County.20 The final center at Gillsville in Hall County formed in the 1880s. All of these potteries are still in operation today, and many of the same family names are going strong, including the Meaders, Hewells, Cravens, and Fergusons. Georgia face jugs and other folk pottery forms were likely influenced by these migrating potters from the Carolinas. These dynasties of potting families were a powerful cohesive and controlling force in Georgia’s ceramic tradition; they bound together the brotherhood of clay.21 However, Georgia potters rarely sought or found the professional status of their fellows in North Carolina. It was not until the 1960s, when the Smithsonian featured the Meaders Family Pottery, that Georgia Folk Pottery became popular among collectors.
Blue and Green Rooster, Edwin Meaders
MEADERS FAMILY The Meaders family of potters is the most influential family in the history of Southern Appalachian folk pottery.22 In 1893, John Milton Meaders founded the first Meaders Family Pottery in the Mossy Creek area of north Georgia. Through the first half of the 20th century, the family strove to maintain a way of life by providing large stocks of preserve vessels, pitchers, churns, and jugs for the community. In the 1960s, the Smithsonian hired folklorist Ralph Rinzler to establish the Smithsonian Folklife program. Searching to celebrate various cultures of the American people, traditional music, and crafts, Rinzler concentrated on the White County Georgia potting family for his first film.
Dave Tabler, “The Meaders Family of White County GA Keeps Pottery Traditions Alive,� Appalachian History, last modified April 8, 2016, http://www.appalachianhistory.net/2016/04/meaders-family-of-white-county-ga-keeps.html.
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The Meaders Family: North Georgia Potters successfully captured the family’s passion for their work, and the challenges they faced in adapting their tradition through America’s dynamic 20th century, to produce a blend of utilitarian and artistic excellence. The Smithsonian featured the film at their first annual Folklife Festival at the National Mall in 1967. This event caused a significant rise in tourist clientele and national attention to Georgia potting families. Appealing to client demand, Lanier Meaders introduced the first Meaders family face jug. Lanier’s response to why he created face jugs was “because it sells.” Today, this family’s pieces are highly sought after collectors’ items and can sell for as much as $3,000.
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Green Face Jug, Lanier Meaders
“I have three brothers, and we’ve all kept our hands in the business. We must have been born with clay in our veins.” Harold Hewell, potter, Gillsville, Georgia
Blue Face Man, Eric Hewell
In 2007, it was discovered that a Hewell ancestor was once a potter in the Edgefield District of South Carolina. Eli Hewell (1854-1920) married into a family of Edgefield potters and worked for them before moving his family to Gillsville, Georgia. 23
HEWELL FAMILY Since Gillsville, Georgia pottery’s humble beginnings in the 1880s, seven generations of Hewells have passed down the craft. While the family’s pottery has changed over the years and the process of pottery making has been modernized in some ways, two things have remained constant: the passion family members show for their craft, and the hard work they commit to it. In Brothers in Clay: The Story of Georgia Folk Pottery, Harold Hewell spoke about the expectations of his father, Maryland
Hewell (1891-1964). “I think he had it in mind he wanted all of his boys to be potters … I have three brothers, and we’ve all kept our hands in the business. We must have been born with clay in our veins,” he said. That red Georgia clay continues to pump through the family’s veins. Today, the Hewells produce unglazed gardenware and alkaline-glazed stoneware. Their work can be seen at their annual Turning and Burning Festival, held in Gillsville on the first Saturday of every October.
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“History,” Hewell Family Pottery, accessed January 23, 2017, www.hewellpottery.com.
CRAVEN FAMILY The Craven family is one of the oldest Clay Clans in the Southeast. The earliest known Craven potter is Peter Craven, an English immigrant who settled in North Carolina in the 1700s. Following the Revolutionary War, Peter’s descendants migrated throughout the Southeast, taking the family trade with them. Some family stayed behind in North Carolina. In the early 20th century, one member of the North Carolina Cravens, J.D. Craven, became the first North Carolinian potter to take advantage of wholesaling establishments that filtered into the state through the railroad. With the help of three employees, J.D. Craven used “60,000 pounds of clay, 16 bushels of salt, and 20 cords of wood to make 6,000 gallons of jugs, churns, crocks, and pitchers valued at $600.”24 That’s a penny a gallon. He was the first to turn his home pottery into an industry with output clearly intended for more than a local market. In 1825, Peter Craven’s great grandson, John V. Craven, moved with his two brothers to the Mossy Creek area of Georgia in what is now White County. The Craven family remained in this area before moving their pottery to Gillsville, Georgia in 1971. Today, Craven family pottery is highly sought after by collectors.
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Charlotte Vestal Brown, The Remarkable Potters of Seagrove: The Folk Pottery of a Legendary North Carolina Community (New York: Lark Books, 2006), 23.
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Indian with Raven Headdress, Lin Craven, 2001
Rooster with Red Comb, Lin Craven, 2000
Blue Pig, Lin Craven, 2000
Rebecca at the Well, Lin Craven, 2001 This sculptural piece incorporated the same marketing techniques started by the Coles of North Carolina. Here Rebecca is holding a miniature Rebecca Pitcher a form created by the Coles.
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FERGUSON FAMILY Charles H. Ferguson worked in the stoneware manufactory of Dr. Abner Landrum at Pottersville in the Edgefield District of South Carolina before migrating to Jackson (now Barrow) County, Georgia. There he established his shop Jug Factory in 1846. His descendants continued the family pottery-making tradition and often taught their spouses the trade. Eventually, all of the potters in the area, including the Hewells, were connected through the Fergusons. Today, the Ferguson family pottery is in Gillsville, Georgia, and is operated by sixth generation potter, Stanley Ferguson. Green Face Pitcher, Bobby Ferguson
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Dark Black Side, Handled Jug, Stanley Ferguson
Little Fat Man, Dwayne & Michael Crocker, 2000
CROCKER FAMILY The Crocker family potters are not a multi-generational potting family, nor are they considered a Clay Clan. Established by Michael Crocker, this small family of Georgia potters appreciates the history of folk pottery in their state, and are dedicated to preserving the tradition. Michael Crocker grew up in Lula, Georgia surrounded by the Clay Clans working in the Georgia folk tradition. He worked as an apprentice for various families before becoming an expert himself. In 1984, Michael converted an abandoned chicken house into a pottery studio. He is quoted to have said, “I believe folks that like my work and the work of other folk potters have some understanding of how hard it is to make, and how important it is for us to carry it on into the future. This appreciation fulfills my desire to continue.”25 His work is included in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s permanent collection. “Michael Crocker,” Smithsonian American Art Museum Renwick Gallery, http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=7462.
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Brown, Charlotte Vestal. The Remarkable Potters of Seagrove: The Folk Pottery of a Legendary North Carolina Community. New York: Lark Books, 2006.
“Michael Crocker.” Smithsonian American Art Museum Renwick Gallery. Accessed January 22, 2017. http://americanart.si.edu/collections/ search/artist/?id=7462.
Burrison, John A. Brothers in Clay: The Story of Georgia Folk Pottery. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1983.
Stanosis, Anthony. Dixie Emporium: Tourism, Foodways, and Consumer Culture in the American South. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2008.
Burrison, John A. “Folk Pottery.” New Georgia Encyclopedia, (2005). Accessed April 11, 2015. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/ arts-culture/folk-pottery.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Burrison, John A. “South Carolina’s Edgefield District: An Early International Crossroads of Clay.” American Studies Journal, no. 56 (2012). Accessed April 10, 2015. http://www.asjournal. org/562012/south-carolinas-edgefield-districtan-earlyinternational-crossroads-of-clay/.
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Compton, Stephen C. A Handed Down Art: The Brown Family Potters. North Carolina: North Carolina Pottery Center, 2015. Egner, David M. “Pottery.” NCPedia. Accessed November 5, 2016. http://ncpedia.org/pottery. “History.” Hewell Family Pottery. Accessed January 23, 2017. www.hewellpottery.com. Huffman, Barry. Catawba Clay: Contemporary Southern Face Jug Makers. Hickory: A.W. Huffman, 1997. Koverman, Jill Beute. “The Ceramic Works of David Drake, aka, Dave the Potter or Dave the Salve of Edgefield, South Carolina.” The University of South Carolina Scholar Commons 3, no. 1 (2005): 83-98.
Tabler, Dave. “The Meaders Family of White County GA Keeps Pottery Traditions Alive.” Appalachian History. Last modified April 8, 2016. http://www.appalachianhistory. net/2016/04/meadersfamily-of-white-countygakeeps.html. Twitchell, James. Lead Us Into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
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