The Potter’s Eye: Art and Tradition in North Carolina Pottery is a beautiful large-format book that was published in conjunction with an exhibition by the same title at the North Carolina Museum of Art. The book’s authors, Mark Hewitt and Nancy Sweezy, are both potters and long-time students of North Carolina stoneware traditions. They have created a resource that could only have been written by artists, which reflects their thorough understanding of the creative processes, art forms, and the work of the region’s historical and contemporary potters. Where many of the earlier books on Southern pottery’s rich traditions explored the historical, social, and cultural heritage of stoneware, this work casts its gaze toward the artistry of pottery, which makes this text a delightful read for scholars and collectors of pottery, and an insightful approach for material culturists.
The body of the work is divided into two sections; the first centers on the pots themselves, while the second focuses on the lives and work of six contemporary potters. The first section, by highlighting the pots themselves, illuminates the potters’ aesthetics employed in North Carolina. The authors examine each pot with an artist’s eye, exploring form, shape, surface, color, glaze, materials, and techniques in great detail. When I first leafed through the book and saw Japanese pots next to North Carolina pottery, I rolled my eyes, assuming it would be another book of cross-cultural conjecture about the evolution and origin of a craft. However, I was pleasantly surprised that the authors used old pots featured in the text from Japan as tutors of connoisseurship, allowing the reader to learn from Japan’s dedicated understanding and appreciation of the potter’s art.
In the second section, Sweeny creates profiles of six master North Carolina potters whose work represents a contemporary generation of the region’s long-standing traditions: Mark Hewitt, Kim Ellington, Ben Owen III, Pam Owens, Vernon Owens, and David Stuempfle. However, these are not just the grandchildren of great folk potters, nor are they contemporary potters that just happen to work in North Carolina. Though some of the potters featured in the book were raised in local traditions, others have chosen and worked to be a part of North Carolina tradition. Nevertheless, as the book demonstrates, each artist’s work is built from the materials and aesthetics of the region as well as from the many other resources which they have incorporated into their craft. The book’s inclusive approach makes this work fresh and exciting. Sweeny constructs each of her profiles from insightful observations about each potter’s work, which she interlaces with lengthy, revealing quotes from the artists. This collection of profiles reveals the vitality of region’s pottery tradition.
As the authors note, two elements set this work apart from the many other books on Southern pottery that have been produced in recent years. First, the artful photographing of each pot works to elevate the reader’s perception. The book contains over two hundred color photographs that vividly capture the form, texture, color, and embellishments of each piece. Photographer Jason Dowdle’s images draw the reader’s eyes to the aesthetic choices expressed in each pot. Where ethnographic photographers often show objects being created or in use, these elegant images focus one’s attention on these pots, not just as cultural artifact or historical marker, but also as fine art. The second, related approach that runs throughout the first section of the book is the authors’ use of a descriptive model borrowed from Japanese pottery scholars and connoisseurs, a model which when applied to the pots of North Carolina broadens our aesthetic appreciation and understanding of these vernacular pots.
This exciting work succeeds in its mission to “signal and celebrate the artistry of North Carolina’s greatest production potters,” but this work has accomplished much more--it has challenged and tutored scholars and collectors to view the stoneware of North Carolina with a potter’s eye (xii).
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[Review length: 644 words • Review posted on November 7, 2007]