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May Issue 2007
North Carolina Pottery Center in Seagrove, NC, Offers Exhibit Featuring Two Area Potteries
The exhibition, Slipped, Dipped, and Dotted: 18th-21st Century North Carolina Redwares, will be held at the North Carolina Pottery Center in Seagrove, NC, on view from May 11 through Aug. 25, 2007. The three part exhibition features the contemporary work of two Seagrove area studios, New Salem Pottery and Westmoore Pottery, and also offers a comprehensive historical look at one of North Carolina's earliest pottery traditions.
Early redware, or low-firing clays, often fired with lead glazes, were commonly produced in North Carolina from the 1750's through the 1820's. "Slipped, Dipped, and Dotted" refers to the fanciful decorative designs which characterized much of this pottery. Once the dangers of lead glazed ware were discovered, the production of redware declined dramatically as stoneware began to dominate pottery production. Today, the redware created at New Salem and Westmoore Potteries is no longer lead glazed but still features the unique qualities of the highly embellished slip designs.
New Salem Pottery, (opened 1972) owned and operated by Hal and Eleanor Pugh, and Westmoore Pottery, (opened 1977) owned and operated by David and Mary Farrell each produce contemporary and traditional redware forms. The Pugh's work has been featured in the Washington Post, Denver Post, Atlanta Journal, New York Times, Ceramics Monthly, and in Daniel Rhodes' Clay and Glazes for the Potter (2000). The Farrell's work is found in the collections of the Mint Museum, the Smithsonian, the North Carolina Museum of History, and the Purdy Museum of Ceramics. They have been featured on WUNC's Folkways with David Holt (2000) and Antiques Roadshow (2003).
Both studios have an abiding interest in pottery history and the expertise of each studio facilitates a specialization in the reproduction of 18th-19th century slip decorated and plain ware, leading to their work in pottery reproduction for use, research, and sale to universities, museums, historic sites, and the film industry. New Salem and Westmoore combine a passion for clay and history into a synthesis of past and present and both were most recently consultants for Cold Mountain and the John Adams miniseries.
For the historical portion of the exhibit, archaeologist and curator Dr. Linda Carnes- McNaughton, Collections Manager/Lab Director of the Cultural Resources Program at Fort Bragg, has selected, historical pieces, 18th-20th Century, from Old World to New World. The work includes Moravian tradition, but also highlights the backcountry potters of North Carolina. Over forty-five earthenware pottery and kiln sites have archaeological documentation in various regions of North Carolina and represent the work of possibly five hundred+ potters. Not all slip-decorated lead-glazed earthenware was produced by Moravian potters. There were over fifty-six earthenware potters operating during the late 18th and 19th centuries outside Wachovia (known today as Old Salem). The exhibit will include information on kilns, clays, glazes, decorations, tools, sherds and the potters.
The mission of the North Carolina Pottery Center is to promote public awareness of and appreciation for the history, heritage, and ongoing tradition of pottery making in North Carolina.
For further information call the Center
at 336/873-8430 or visit (www.ncpotterycenter.com).
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