Poem Jugs

While looking at the history of Edgefield pottery, one potter stands out from the rest: Dave the Potter. Dave was unusual because he wrote couplets on his vases and pots. At the time, slaves were forbidden to be literate, so writing poems was risky activity. Many scholars have suggested that this should be considered an act of sedition toward the cause of civil rights. Dave's pottery now sells for over $40,000 a piece! Here are some of his pots:

One of Dave's most famous couplets:

"I wonder where is all my relations

Friendship to all - and every nation."

 There is a wonderful new children's book about Dave called "Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave" by Laban Carrick Hill & Bryan Collier:

My students created some thoughtful couplets of their own, which they inscribed into their pottery:

Face Jugs

We recently studied some famous pottery history from slaves in the Antebellum South.  Among some of the most curious traditions were face jugs made in the Edgefield Pottery Studios in South Carolina. Edgefield employed slaves in their pottery industries, where the tradition of face jugs, aka grotesque jugs, or ugly jugs. There are quite a few theories about these distorted face bottles. One is that slaves, who were forbidden to have tombstones, used these as graves, as was done in Africa to mark a burial site. Another theory is that the faces were meant to scare children away from the contents, such as alcohol. 

These are some Edgefield pots created by slaves that survived the past century and a half or so:

My students in wheel throwing created some unique face jugs:

Jessica R

 

 Sara C