"The Potter's Eye" Sees Art and Tradition in North Carolina Pottery

The wares themselves range from utilitarian vessels like jugs, jars and crocks to sieves, still caps, pipes for smoking and for drains and tea and coffee pots. By the late Nineteenth Century, recognized forms extended to barrels, spittoons, candleholders, chicken waterers and animal feeders, and face jugs.

North Carolina pottery is readily distinguished by its glaze, either salt or alkaline (ash). Salt glazing in North Carolina came from its roots in the Eighteenth Century when early German and English settlers arrived first along the coast and then relocated to the western part of the state, which they found to be rich in clay deposits.

The characteristic olive-greenish alkaline or ash glaze pottery, on the other hand, had its genesis in letters of a French missionary that described glazes of wood ash, clay and glass. Its practitioners settled in the center of the state, around the Piedmont area.

While the quality and artistic appeal of pottery much depends on the clay and the glaze, the kilns themselves and the firings are also of equal importance. North Carolina potters used wood-fired cross-draft groundhog kilns, which, as the name suggests, were dug in the ground. Their construction allowed the glazed pots within to be exposed to the wood ash that flew around as a result of combustion.

At high temperatures, the glaze fused into glass and melted down the sides of a pot creating a beautiful visual effect. The added fillip of the flying ash was a distinctive decorative result. When salt glazes were employed, the high temperature in the kiln caused the silica in clay to melt into a glaze with a slightly irregular, stippled effect.

After repeated high firings over time, the kilns themselves would deteriorate and the bricks began to melt, dropping onto the pots within and leaving the marks known as "kiln drips" or "potter's tears." As each kiln aged, the drips and fly ash would become more dramatic, resulting in striking glazes.

What the casual observer might view as minor flaws actually lends each piece character and highly desirable decorative elements. Throughout the exhibit, jugs and jars from all centuries offer up examples of this particularity.

North Carolina folk pottery appeared in the mid-Eighteenth Century in the central part of the state where artisans had and still have access to good quality clay. The traditional ash, salt and alkaline glazes and wood-fired kilns have been in continuous use since the beginning.

Among the earliest North Carolina potters was Chester Webster, actually a transplant who moved to Randolph County, N.C., in the 1820s from Hartford, Conn., where he had worked at Goodwin and Webster. Webster's two younger brothers, Edward and Timothy, also worked in North Carolina and their early work attested to their northern origins. A four-gallon salt glazed jug that Chester or Edward Webster made sometime between 1830 and 1840 is incised with a fanciful "zipper-mouth" fish, and its brownish-purpley surface is decorated with dark fly ash drips.

A four-gallon salt glazed stoneware jar by Webster is decorated with incised images of two birds, one catching a fly and the other whistling out the date, 1850. Incised decoration was an early New England tradition that the Webster brothers brought south with them. Few pieces by the Webster brothers have been found without incised decorations.

A circa 1870 salt glazed stoneware cup by Chester Webster has a pale gray glaze with intermittent pools of green wood ash beneath the lip. One of Webster's only known intact cups, it is decorated with stippled hatch marks and an incised poinsettia. The glaze has a dappled effect. A pitcher that Webster made when he was 81 is incised with the date, 1879, and a fish on one side and a bird on the other.

The Cravens were another family of potters, the first of whom, Peter, arrived in North Carolina in about 1760. Nine generations of Cravens have since worked in the Randolph County area.

An eight-gallon salt glazed stoneware crock by Peter Craven's great-grandson Enoch has a soft gray surface and an extra pair of handles for gripping the pot and emptying its contents. Enoch Craven's six-gallon jug was banded at the knee after suffering some damage. Its heavy residue of fly ash deposits and kiln drips render it an extremely dramatic example.

Jugs by Enoch Craven's nephews are on view, including W.N. Craven's three-gallon salt glazed jug that is said to be typically "North Carolinian." The elegantly formed jug is light brown in color with deeper brown kiln drips and a finely formed handle. J.A. Craven's half-gallon jug is small, but angular, with an animated configuration of fly ash and kiln drips against the dun surface.

A Fifth or Sixth Century Japanese Sueki ware pot on view demonstrates the remarkable similarities between the ancient pots and Nineteenth Century North Carolina wares. Sueki ware was the first high-temperature stoneware pottery produced in Japan and the jar displayed exhibits an interesting checked pattern among its kiln drips.

Salt glazed work on view by members of the Fox family of Chatham County, N.C., echoes the Japanese pot in its robust form. Himer Fox's one-gallon pitcher has a globular belly, similar to that of the Sueki pot, and a cylindrical neck. It is fancifully incised with concentric circles surrounding an intermediate soft zigzag pattern. Unlike any previous examples, the pitcher sits on a bottom rim, which adds stability. Fox's circa 1860 bowl, with its soft green, gray and brown hues, has a sturdy, timeless appeal. A sturdy half-gallon crock by Nicholas Fox was fired upside down, as the drips run upward from the base.

Several salt glazed stoneware grave markers on view attest to the increasing creativity of potters at their wheels. One, made in Union County, N.C., 1890 for L.C. Laney was decorated with hatch marks and stamping and resembles an executioner's hood. Another made in Randolph County for James R. Teague, who died October 13, 1938, is much simpler in form, similar to an unlighted candle. A contemporary effort by Chatham County potter and exhibit co-curator Mark Hewitt is smoothly tapered, with elements of early Grecian and Art Deco, and is inscribed with the Latin text of the Requiem Mass.

The earliest ash glazed piece in the exhibit is a Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) vase whose regularity of the glaze has raised speculation that wood ash was sifted onto the vase before it was placed in the kiln. Exhibit co-curators potters Hewitt and Nancy Sweezy point to the striking similarity of the ash glaze of the Han vase and that of a circa 1830 four-gallon alkaline glazed stoneware jug by Daniel Seagle of Lincoln County, N.C. Other Seagle pieces on view attest to the unique characteristics of work by area artists. Seagle's circa 1850 four-gallon alkaline glazed jug was given a dramatic treatment of glass scraps to create vibrant runs down its sides. His ten-gallon jug in a light brown was decorated with carefully placed glass scraps, causing lighter colored runs from either side of the handles. Despite its mass, the piece retains Seagle's consistently elegant form.

A Nineteenth Century alkaline glazed stoneware dirt dish by David Hartzog of Lincoln County was made in a perfectly simple utilitarian form without decoration other than an appealing gray-brown glaze.

Work by contemporary potters Kim Ellington, Hewitt, Ben Owen III, Pam Owens, Vernon Owens and David Stuempfle attests to the continuing influence of Nineteenth Century artisans and their techniques. At the same time, the contemporary potters interpret those traditions, putting their own stamps on their pottery. Because their pots are not strictly utilitarian, today's artists have great latitude in experimentation. The effects are dazzling. Catawba Valley artisan Kim Ellington, who says he prefers "streamy" glaze, produces distinctively glazed pots that are sheer drama.

Hewitt's work draws on Asian influences integrated with Western traditions and techniques. A handsome 2004 planter with an alkaline glaze in a quilted pattern recalls a Herend jar from his childhood in England. His 1999 salt glazed stoneware "Iced Tea Ceremony Vessel" is like a Japanese painting with an array of textures and drips. Impressive pots by Owen, Pam Owens, Vernon Owens and Stuempfle demonstrate the magic blending of tradition and current creativity.

"The Potter's Eye: Art and Tradition in North Carolina Pottery" has support from George Holt of the North Carolina Museum of Art. Hewitt lives and works near Pittsboro, N.C. Sweezy directed the Jugtown Pottery and has written extensively on southern American pottery. Holt is the former director of the North Carolina Arts Council and was an active force in the establishment of the North Carolina Pottery Center in Seagrove.

"The Potter's Eye: Art and Tradition in North Carolina Pottery" remains on view at the North Carolina Museum of Art through March 16. A scholarly catalog of the same name by Hewitt and Sweezy, has been published by the University of North Carolina Press. For information, 919-839-6262 or www.ncartmuseum.org.