Enduring Charm of North Carolina Pottery

By Robert Reed

As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, September 2006

When it comes to classic folk pottery some consider North Carolina to be the fairest land of all.

Historians find the enduring tradition of North Carolina's pottery making to be nearly unequaled in the United States. Artists, collectors, and  worldwide visitors still marvel at masterpieces of redware and stoneware crafted generations ago.

"Like potters from other traditions, North Carolina potters began to produce their wares from necessity, and when that necessity waned, they adjusted their output to the demands of the marketplace, evolving different forms and glazes," observes Barbara Perry the curator of decorative arts at the prestigious Mint Museums.

"It is this tolerance for adaptation that has kept the tradition alive," adds Perry, "the only continuing pottery tradition in this country, with the exception of the Native American tradition of the Southwest."

Starting in late 2004 and continuing into early 2005 the Mint Museums in Charlotte, North Carolina staged a major exhibition of North Carolina pottery. Mint Museums has a 1,600 piece collection which is considered one of the most comprehensive of any public institution.

In many ways the geography of the state worked toward successful pottery. In the Piedmont region, for example, ideal conditions prevailed for the folk potter. There was "an abundance of fine clay, a rapidly expanding population, an economy dominated by small, self-sufficient farms, and relative isolation from outside markets," notes Cynthia Rubin author of Southern Folk Art.     

During the late 18th century and early 19th century the Piedmont area alone had more than 50 earthenware potters active in the market place. "The work was unabashedly utilitarian," adds Rubin, "the most common decorative touch being a hastily applied incised band or wavy combing."

Redware was a popular pottery in North Carolina for a time but was relatively short-lived because it was somewhat less durable and certainly more toxic in preparation than other wares.

Bowls and pots made of redware as early as the 1790s have been traced to origins in that state. Even earlier lead-glazed redware might have bands of circles within circles with occasional brown and white rim markings. As the use of redware increased potters readily crafted flasks, kegs, pots, churns, and even jars complete with handles and sawtooth patterns.

Stoneware pottery however was much more dominate in 19th century North Carolina.

Such stoneware pottery made have had both European and Asian origins according to some. In an essay for the newly released book North Carolina Pottery, writer Mark Hewitt suggests a dual connection.

"The two North Carolina stoneware traditions, the salt glaze and the alkaline glaze, clearly have Western European origins," according to Hewitt, "but both traditions are overlaid with associative elements that connect them, inexorably and intriguingly, to Asian antecedents."

The salt glaze was in greater use by potters of that area at the time. It was fairly easy to apply. The potter simply place the ware in the kiln, slowly built the heat to around 2,300 degrees, and then introduced common salt which vaporized instantly and covered the exposed surfaces of ware with a fine sodium silicate coating.

"In North Carolina, the pots were rarely stacked, and the bulk of the salt was introduced through small openings along the top arch instead of through the firebox," points out Rubin. "Accordingly, the wares often had thick drippings of greenish brown salt and fly ash flowing over the shoulders and sides."

Some of the grandest potters of early North Carolina were part of the family line of established potters, and in turn, continued to be a vital link in the crafting heritage.

Nicholas Fox, "considered one of the finest potters in the North Carolina tradition" by experts at the Mint Museums learned from his father Jacob. Jacob Fox had migrated from Pennsylvania to North Carolina where he taught Nicholas the art of making salt glazed stoneware. Eventually Nicholas Fox became one of the most accomplished potters of the Piedmont area. Today examples of his exceptional stoneware jugs are housed at the Mint Museums.

Likewise John M. Loy learned the pottery trade from his father Solomon Loy during the 19th century in North Carolina. Later John Loy's two sons also became accomplished potters. More than a century later some of the Loy family works are now part of the museum's collection.

Still another example was Sylvanus Leander Hartsoe. Sylvanus learned the pottery art from his father David and worked in North Carolina's Lincoln and Catawba counties with his brother Daniel. Curators at the Mint Museums consider Sylvanus Hartsoe, sometimes known under the name Hartzog, as "one of  the most prolific potters in the Catawba Valley area." Hartsoe made use of natural minerals from rocks and sand which contained titanium dioxide and provided a blue and white coloration on many of his wares.

Alkaline glaze, meanwhile, required more than just common salt was generally used later in North Carolina. The above mentioned Hartsoe, already accustomed to adding minerals readily adapted a brown alkaline glaze to his pottery during the latter 19th century. The alkaline process involved use of potash and sand and typically produced a rather dark and thick resulting glaze.

"North Carolina potters occasionally included small amounts of finely ground limonite or hematite gathered from the fields," related Rubin, "which resulted in a mottled brown to solid black. " Generally the alkaline glaze was regarded as  "dark and unpredictable, qualities which hardly allowed for refined or subtle embellishment."

Following in the rich tradition of North Carolina pottery making, the Seagrove Pottery was established in the 1950s by Dorothy Cole Auman and her husband Walter Auman. Indeed Dorothy Cole Auman herself was an accomplished pottery who had practiced the art since her childhood. Walter Auman's family likewise had practiced pottery making for decades.

The Aumans amassed a sizable collection of North Carolina pottery, which they initially displayed in the Seagrove Potters Museum, an old railway depot they had moved onto their property and renovated as a museum. Ultimately this collection went to the Mint Museum of Art and became the nucleus of their pottery holdings.

After more than a century and a half the charming pottery of North Carolina's past endures.

"It did not succumb to the demands of the Industrial Revolution, as did the potteries of Staffordshire, nor was it forced to bow to the demands of the court, as were the European porcelain manufacturers," concludes curator/author Perry. "Instead, it developed freely according to the needs and customs of its makers and users."

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