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January Issue
2011
Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill,
NC, Offers Exhibit Covering Two Centuries of North Carolina Pots
The Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill,
NC, is presenting the exhibit, Tradition in Clay: Two Centuries
of Classic North Carolina Pots, on view through Mar. 20, 2011.
Pottery is North Carolina's most famous indigenous art form. With
highlights from the Ackland Art Museum's esteemed and growing
collection of pottery, as well as loans from significant local
collections, Tradition in Clay: Two Centuries of Classic North
Carolina Pots presents over 100 pots and pottery vessels,
including works by masters from the Seagle and Fox families, as
well as Ben Owen, Mark Hewitt, and others.
The richness of heritage and the fluidity of artistic practice
are evident in the exhibit, as pots spanning a period of two hundred
years illustrate both continuity and change in the forms, glazes,
and technologies used by the state's potters.
Tradition in Clay is curated by Terry Zug, author of the
award-winning book Turners and Burners: The Folk Potters of
North Carolina and professor emeritus in the Department of
English, UNC-Chapel Hill.
The exhibition focuses on two major traditions in North Carolina
pottery: Utilitarian Pots of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries:
The Essential Potter's Repertory and Artistic Vessels of the 20th
Century.
Although produced for everyday food storage and fired with inexpensive
salt and alkaline glazes, stoneware jars, jugs, churns, and crocks
made from the 1820s to the 1940s exhibit a surprising beauty in
their forms, colors, and textures. While rarely decorated in an
overt way, these carefully turned vessels often have meticulously
crafted rims and handles and rich glazes. Sizes of these high-quality
pots range from quart-size jugs to 20-gallon "mega pots."
In contrast to the muted, earthy hues of earlier pots, the new
art pottery of the early 20th century began to take on brighter
colors, bolder glazes, and more elaborate shapes, as potters began
to produce wares that were intended to be seen as well as used.
North Carolina potters forged new hybrid traditions that at once
drew on older folk pottery while responding to contemporary needs
and tastes.
For further info check our NC Institutional Gallery listings,
call the Museum at 919/966-5736 or visit (www.ackland.org).
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