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June Issue 2007
Sparta Teapot Museum in Sparta, NC, Opens Preview Gallery
The Sparta Teapot Museum scheduled to open in Sparta, NC, in 2008, has opened the Preview Gallery at 18 South Main Street in downtown Sparta. This temporary gallery space gives folks a preview of up to 70 teapots from the Kamm collection of teapots which will be housed in the new museum.
The gallery presents the exhibit, Traditions
and Trends: The Teapot in Art, Craft and Design, put together
by the Museum's curator Mary Douglas. She chose several groups
of teapots that tell stories about the history and culture of
teapots.
One group is designed to show how the influence of culture spread
around the globe in items like teapots. "Asia over the centuries
influenced European culture," Douglas explained.
This exhibit will feature teapots made for export from Asia to
the West. Others are European pottery from England, Germany and
Ireland and France that are representative of the great porcelain
factories, many of which still operate today, she said. These
are representative of the kind of teapots the wealthy would buy.
Still more examples are from the American and European Arts and Crafts Movement around the turn of the 20th century. These items are functional and decorative, and were purchased mostly by middle class people.
"A display of North Carolina items will show pottery made and used out of necessity, called folk pottery," Douglas said. People made these items themselves in an era when they needed milk crocks, jugs or teapots. Once other materials (usually plastic) replaced them, people turned to art, making face jugs and other creative pottery.
"The silver teapot display is the one based on media - what the items are made of," Douglas adds. It is a display of the art of silversmithing from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Items in the studio craft movement display will be familiar to visitors. These teapots come from today's pottery studios, like the small home studios around this area. "Rob and Bet Mangum's Pottery of Turkey Knob is an example," Douglas said.
"This type of pottery evolved out of the GI Bill following World War II," she explained. Soldiers added to college rolls after the war and colleges began developing art departments that taught skills like pottery. That in turn evolved into small studios that did everything to make pottery, from forming to firing to painting the pots, as opposed to assembly lines.
The teapots have labels giving the name of the creator, when it was created and materials used. Douglas said she hopes people will be able to make their own connections between the historical and contemporary teapots, or at least have a good time looking at them.
Also at the gallery, people can see a video about the museum project, and displays that detail blueprints, a site plan and other items of interest. Information will be available about Sonny and Gloria Kamm, owners of the collection, which numbers over 6,000, that will be housed permanently at the Sparta Teapot Museum.
For further information check our NC Institutional
Gallery listings, call the gallery at 336/372-7795 or visit (www.spartateapotmuseum.org).
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