My local DDD sorority group of older members often takes trips around the area to explore the delights of north Georgia. This fall some from our group drove to the northeast part of the state to learn all about folk pottery. I’ve often seen jugs with faces in local shops, as well as terracotta pots for outside plants, but have never thought about the history of pottery in every community over the centuries. So come along and learn with us at the Sautee Nacoochee Cultural Center.
As we’ve toured the U.S. the past few years, we’ve learned that one of the first industries to come to a new community was a sawmill so other buildings could be built. Today we learned that potters who used family recipes and techniques were also in demand since pots were the only way to store supplies and liquids. Potters from Europe came across the ocean to America in the early 1700s to use their skills to support themselves and provide for the new nation.
When refrigeration and new storage products (such as glass) changed the way of living for these folks, the demand for utilitarian pottery went into decline.
the growth of refrigeration according to Wikipedia
During the early 1800s, consumers preserved their food by storing food and ice purchased from ice harvesters in iceboxes. In 1803, Thomas Moore patented a metal-lined butter-storage tub that became the prototype for most iceboxes. These iceboxes were used until nearly 1910, and the technology stopped for a while. In fact, consumers who used the icebox in 1910 faced the same challenge of a moldy and stinky icebox that consumers had in the early 1800s.
General Electric (GE) was one of the first companies to overcome these challenges. In 1911, GE released a household refrigeration unit that was powered by gas, eliminating the need for an electric compressor motor and decreasing the size of the refrigerator. However, electric companies that were customers of GE wanted to be in on the action, so GE invested in developing an electric model. In 1927, GE released the Monitor Top, the first refrigerator to run on electricity.
Back to our pottery.
Once potters didn’t need to make the pots for storing foods and liquids, potters began making decorative and creative stoneware (jugs with faces).
making pots over the centuries
Let’s go back in time to see how pots were made over the centuries. In north Georgia, four families made most of the pots: the Meaders, Hewell, Dorsey, and Ferguson families. Most of the following pictures had descriptions of what is being shown in the picture, and I’ll summarize the highlights for you.
Early potters had to find their most basic raw material where they lived and then process it themselves. Stoneware clay was usually buried in the bottom land of streams under several feet of topsoil. In this picture, Cleater Meaders used a long iron clay auger to locate good clay here in White County. They would drill into the ground to pull up a test sample before getting out their shovels to dig.
This iron tool was used to locate good stoneware clay on the Meades property north of Cleveland. It was drilled into the ground until a vein of clay was struck. The resulting core sample was pulled up and examined for its “turning” quality. If the sample was good, a hole was dug, and the clay was mined.
Today farmers/potters use electric backhoes and store what they can’t use right away.
Georgia folk potters once refined their clay in wooden, mule-turned mills. Today they mix it with motor-driven pug mills (a fast, continuous mixer used in pottery, bricks, cement, and some parts of the concrete and asphalt mixing processes).
Then it’s wedged, or kneaded, to mix it all up and remove air, roots, and stones that could cause blowout holes when fired. The resulting clay “balls,” are weighed so that pieces of the same shape and size are uniform and ready to be thrown.
The following information from Turning and Burning Festival highlights how pottery used to be made.
getting the clay ready to use
Potters were north Georgia farmers who potted on a seasonal basis so they could make their wares to sell. It still is a business and not a hobby. Lanier Meaders said that pottery was a way of life and a livelihood since it put food on their table. Potters in each generation learned their skills from informal training over the years. Specialized equipment began to be built as men learned to work more efficiently.
Some potters were so good and so fast that they would go from farm to farm throwing pots from clay already prepared.
Many of today’s potters use regional handcrafting technology that has been carried over from the 19th century.
Horizontal “pins” inside the tub churn clay and water until the heavy impurities drop to the bottom. Today potters use an electric-powered mill to process clay in a modern plant.
The clay is then split by a wire as it’s slapped onto the wedging table; this process exposes roots or stones that have to be picked out. The resulting homogenized “ball” is then weighed on homemade scales.
A counterweight of plow-points and other scrap iron is set in one of the notches on the upper edge of the balancing beam; each notch represents the right amount of clay for a pot of a given gallon capacity.
throwing the pots
What defined Georgia’s folk potters as craftsmen is their skill at turning, or “throwing,” which is the process of shaping the clay on the potter’s wheel. While this work was primarily done by the men, some women helped out in the shop. Ada Howell, who worked with her husband in the 1930s, said that it took longer to learn how to make a good piece of ware than to get a college education. Several years of apprenticeship under an older and skilled potter were needed to develop throwing skills.
The potter pedals with one leg a horizontal bar linked to the crankshaft. A standing position allows him to thrown big pieces more easily. The hinged “ball-opener” lever for plunging the initial opening in the clay is a southern feature. Of course, some modern-day Georgia folk potters now use electric motor-powered wheels, which saves them from sore muscles.
glazes
A glaze is the glassy sealing finish on pottery. Well-fired stoneware clay normally won’t leak, but it’s still glazed as a precaution and to look good. Northeast Georgia folk potters coated their “raw” (unfired) wares either with a solution of homemade alkaline glaze or “bought” Albany slip.
For those of you who like more information on glazes, I’ve summarized and retyped the information following this picture.
Alkaline glazes contain wood-ashes or lime that, when mixed with water, become a caustic-base flux that helps melt the other ingredients of clay and an extra silica source such as sand. These glazes turn either green or brown, depending on the atmosphere in the kiln. The clay underneath influences the shade since the glazes are semi-transparent when properly is fired.
The ash-based type often has a drippy texture, while the lime version tends to be smoother. Some Mossy Creek potters stopped using regular sand and instead used dark iron sand, flint (quartzite), and eventually powdered glass. The glaze solution was refined in a hand-turned stone mill, a back-breaking chore that was eventually eliminated by modifying the glaze recipes with preprocessed ingredients.
Southern alkaline glazes are like those in Asia around the time of Christ. A description of Chinese ash- and lime-based glazes was published in 1735; Abner Landrum of the Edgefield District in South Carolina probably had read about them and was using them by 1820.
Dr. Abner Landrum is credited with establishing the Edgefield Pottery tradition in the first decade of the 1800s. Using local materials and his extensive knowledge, he began to produce a fine stoneware that was food safe and could be sold to markets up to 150 miles away. (Information from a website on Old Edgefield pottery.)
Since the ingredients were easily available, alkaline glazes became a practical alternative to the European and northern practice of glazing stoneware with salt, which was scarce in the southern back-country. Migrating potters brought this newly developed alkaline glazes into Georgia and as far west as Texas.
Albany slip is a natural clay glaze mined in the Hudson River Valley near Albany, New York, and was first used on northern stoneware.. This smooth, brown glaze became available to southern potters once trade resumed with the North after the Civil War. Its simple preparation–just mixing with water into a slip, or liquid clay–and its ease of cleaning for customers made the glaze worth the expense.
Barrow County potters adopted Albany slip in the 1870s. When they threw salt in the kiln at the height of firing, they created a patchy double glaze or tan or green where the sodium vapor concentrated. Gillsville potters called this glaze “the black glazin'” since it turns that color when fired very hot. Mossy Creek potters began using this “patent” glaze about 1895, but only a few abandoned the old gazes in its favor.
Cheever Meaders who moved from Mossy Creek to town still used a mill on his property in the early 1960s for glazing his pots.
The iron rod for adjusting the fineness of the grind rests on the horizontal plank between the mill’s legs.
modern-day potter
Daniel Bollinger is a modern-day potter who demonstrates the old-fashion techniques at the Folk Pottery Museum.
Because of where Barney and I live in Georgia, all we’re used to is the Georgia red clay that is so hard to wash out of clothes. However, where this museum is in northeast Georgia, (more about this soon), the clay is gray and is better to use for the pots. We’d never thought about different colors of clay. Daniel gets his clay from a riverbed on his family’s land. He’s dug down so far that he’s ready to use powerful electric equipment to dig out more clay.
best clay for pots
The best clay for pots is in the Piedmont area of the U.S. It’s a plateau region in the east between the Atlantic coastal plain and the main Appalachian Mountains, and stretches from New York to central Alabama.
Charles Ferguson was trained in the early alkaline-glazed stoneware tradition of South Carolina. Later he moved to Georgia and by 1847 had set up a “jug factory” as shown on the following map. He began a 60-potter dynasty that through marriage included a number of families.
As the years went by and potters were wanting to make fancier pots, they began glazing them with salt thrown into the kiln during the higher temperature part of the firing process. This glaze produces a tan to brown glaze with rivulets and runs down the pots. Albany Slip Brown is fluid and butter-colored where thick and russet (reddish brown) were thin. It’s a low plastic silty clay that was mined in Albany, New York, for decades.
By 1900, most of the Barrow County shops had closed, leaving only two families to operate into the early 20th century.
examples of pots in the museum
As time went on and other materials for storing food and liquids were developed, potters had to start coming up with other ways of making a living. The following picture shows some of their creations.
Jugs with faces have become one of the oldest decorative pottery traditions in north Georgia. This style came from South Carolina coastal slaves who brought their traditions with them from Africa. The thought was these early potters put faces on their jugs to remember their family members who had passed away. Other potters noticed the pots and began to imitate them. Charlie Ferguson began producing these pots around 1900 because his ancestors had made them. William Hewell likely picked up the idea from his Ferguson in-laws in Gillsville and then introduced it to Cheever Meaders at Mossy Creek.
Virtually every southern potter of any style has tried making faces on jugs. Daniel, our in-house potter said he’d prefer to make face jugs since they were more interesting.
After our time inside, another docent took us outside to walk us around the African American Heritage Site next to the museum. The next post takes us outside.
