North Carolina Pottery Center and
Bulldog Pottery – Bruce Gholson & Samantha Henneke
We followed the map provided to us at the North Carolina Pottery Center in Seagrove. This center is a wonderful place to start your Seagrove ceramic adventure. It has ongoing pottery exhibits of the local potters as well as a collection on display of the historical achievements of families of potters in the area over many generations. 
We made a much sought after discovery while in Seagrove. Bulldog Pottery had been recommended to me as one of the best places during our first trip to Seagrove many years ago. No one seemed at home at Bulldog Pottery during that first visit and again when we visited for the second time a few years later. This time our determined effort really paid off. We met the two outstanding ceramic artists represented here – Bruce Gholson and Samantha Henneke. The work on display in their gallery was astonishing. We met and talked with these two friendly and welcoming people. Judy and I decided on a very large and stunning vase by Bruce. It was the most expensive pot we bought on this visit to Seagrove but well worth it. Today it is situated on a Japanese lacquer box in our living room. The unique flow of vivid glazes running down this tall vase offers continuing pleasure for us. These two devoted craftspeople epitomize the great pride and dedication of the Seagrove community to the highest levels of ceramic mastery. By the way, Bruce expressed surprise when I told him that we have tried two times before to visit their gallery and failed to find anyone home. He assured us that their absence from this site is actually quite rare. Bulldog Pottery was well worth the effort to locate and to finally receive the full benefits of meeting Bruce and Samantha and obtaining one of their very special ceramic artifacts.
Whynot Pottery – Mark & Meredith Heywood
I have been to Whynot Pottery on previous visits. We have two or three pieces of their work in our pottery gallery at home. This time I got a chance to meet and talk with Mark Heywood, who, along with his wife, Meredith, are the potters and owners of this establishment. We choose a lidded vase with a rich impasto of running glazes in golden hues. I try to introduce myself in a way that will convey my long involvement and dedication to pottery as a collector, lecturer, and writer without sounding self-important or pretentious. I also try not to initiate a passionate and lengthy tirade about the pleasures incurred in my experiences in these various capacities. Judy has warned me that my enthusiasm can result in a dense rush of commentary that can be overwhelming to the newly introduced potter. Most potters forgive my excess. Regardless, I found potters in general most responsive to those of us who display genuine investment in our mutual devotion to ceramics.
I want to include a quote about Seagrove pottery from a fine book, “The Remarkable Potters of Seagrove: The Folk Pottery of a Legendary North Carolina Community” by Charlotte Vestal Brown. This is what she had to say,
“Understanding the chemistry that seems to pervade this amazing congregation of potters is not easy. It is tempting to see parallels between the potters’ personalities and their work….These makers are complex, talented, and, above all, private people. The work they show represents but a facet of the world in which they live. The work we see is the result of huge efforts and long years of questioning their personal visions and goals and of struggling to attain a satisfying standard. 
We never see what is thrown away. All of the Seagrove potters are driven by an individual ideal of perfection, to make nothing less than strong and consistent work. Some have goals that drive them perpetually to make new kinds of work, work that is sometimes vastly changed from what came before, sometimes only a few throws different from yesterday’s jug. Of such progress, Pam Owens said, ‘we take baby steps,’ and I don’t believe she means justly small steps, but explorative, experimental ones, to find the best ways to make their wares. These potters consistently make work that speaks directly, without benefit of their makers’ intervention. I walk into a shop and wait for the work to speak to me in the voice that the potter has chosen. I don’t always know if the clay is local or commercial, if the kiln is gas or wood, if the maker mixed her own glazes or not. Of course I usually am able to identity all these things, but first comes the voice of the work itself. The ability of these people to elicit powerful feeling through their work is part of what makes me go back to the area again and again. Sometimes I need a new mug, sometimes a plate or a vase, and sometimes I just need to escape to a place that I know is not like where I live. Some of the potters’ favorite stories are those that tell of the difference their work makes in the lives of those who use it. What more could one ask for than to know that the work of one’s hands could cheer, comfort, amuse, and enrich a person’s daily life?”
Jugtown Pottery – Owen Family
I want to refer back to Jugtown Pottery. We returned to this historic pottery as we have on every previous visit. Vernon Owens grew up working in his dad’s shop, learning and working along side his father, M.L. Owens and his uncle Walter Owen. He started working at Jugtown in 1960, over fifty years ago. Today he and his wife, Pamela Lorette Owens, a gifted potter in her own right, are partners in this enterprise. They have been joined by their son, Travis, who stared making pots at age 2 and now works full time at the pottery. They have a great museum at this pottery, which has samples of generations of local potter’s who created their pottery while at the Jugtown Pottery. Judy and I took a leisurely stroll through the rooms of the gallery, enjoying the classic designs of Jugtown pottery carried on by Vernon and Pam Owens. We noticed larger vessel forms and more intense glazes on some of the ceramic pottery. These were recent work by Travis, who is offering a new generation of contemporary statements that emanate from past traditions but provides his own unique creative infusion. We purchased one of his vibrant pots and were quite pleased when he came out to meet and talk with us. It is very reassuring to know that he is quite willing and able to continue the work of his family into the coming decades. We also purchased a fine pair of candlesticks by Vernon in that frog skin glaze long celebrated by Jugtown.
Westmoore Pottery – David & Mary Farrell
We returned to a pottery we knew well in Seagrove, Westmoore Pottery and the work of David and Mary Farrell. They came to Seagrove in the 1970’s, first as apprentices at Jugtown, then stayed on to establish Westmore Pottery. Here they create redware plates and pots faithful in many ways to the German and Pennsylvania work made by Moravians of Central Europe in earlier centuries. They make dinnerware decorated by stylized floral forms, bands of color and other designs, all made by slip trailing on the surface of strong red clay intensified by a clear glaze. We already had a big, stylized chicken and a plate obtained on previous visits. I spotted a large brown pot with a base relief face of a beautiful, old bearded man. I immediately recognized that I saw that same face every morning when I looked in the mirror so I had to have it. The Farrell’s are focused on taking a particular pottery tradition that came to North Carolina with some early settlers and to continue that tradition with variations that can be directly traced to the source of their inspiration. At the same time the work is not only charming but also novel because of their unique distinction of seeking to preserve and continue a cultural tradition of long standing.
A Collector’s Reasoning
How can I justify all these purchases of something as non-essential as pottery? Is it a foolish self-indulgence, particularly at my time of life? Should I have long stopped the acquisition of pottery and rather concern myself with how I am going to dispose of it? Do I dare claim that my acquisition of pottery is somehow a more noble impulse than those who prefer to do their shopping at Wal-Mart or Target? Is not the raw lust of consumerism behind all such activities? Schiller, the German Romantic poet of the 19th century, discussed this issue and I responded to his comments in my 46th letter to Christa Assad,
“One cannot easily shift consumer desires from commercial and manufactured commodities to the more ephemeral objects of aesthetic refinement. It is difficult, as creatures of habit, to accord objects of beauty a different status than those objects bought off the shelf in other consumer transactions. How can we claim a special endowment and more noble intention in seeking to secure a work of art? The desire of acquisition, ‘restless and plagued by imperious want’ as stated by Schiller, might obtain the object, but it cannot give you the resources to appreciate the beauty of the object. How do we attain that ‘higher power and greatness’ inherent in the disciplined encounter with the subtle elements of the beautiful? Without beauty, is not consumerism, even possessed by those with the ability to sponsor extravagant purchases, finally a state of ‘exhausted desire’?”
Artists of the Future
I am fully aware that there are many creative centers and communities of pottery making in other regions of America as well as elsewhere in the world. Why do I find so much encouragement and hope when I travel to North Carolina and Seagrove in particular? I am truly inspired when I encounter a new generation of potters, in an area where pottery making goes back well over two hundred years, potters like Travis Owens and Alex Matisse who are determined to further that ceramic legacy into the future. I want to believe that pottery has that kind of future, still attracting young people who see purpose and pleasure in creating that pottery whose existence has brought me such aesthetic joy over my lifetime. I also profoundly respect that older generation of potters who have not only contributed great pottery of their own but have provided leadership and training to those who aspire to reach the same level of mastery and achievement that they have already accomplished.
I cannot predict the future, particularly the future where I will no longer be around to observe and experience. I do see great hope and concrete evidence of the vitality and creative endeavors of the makers of pottery. I do not think that external circumstances or current events in the world can ever totally obstruct or defeat that primal drive to take a wad of earth and shape a memorable container of timeless beauty out of it. I am grateful to be a part of that web of people who either make or celebrate pottery. It is a very good thought to have as I experience the last days of this year. I fully accept my portion of responsibility in this relationship. I will continue to make every effort to further develop that “higher power and greatness inherent in the disciplined encounter with the subtle elements of the beautiful.” This endeavor can never be fully completed but gives me ample reason to look forward to the next day and the day after that and the coming new year and even beyond.
Note: If you would like to view an aerial map of Seagrove’s pottery community click here.
Tags: about Richard, artists, ceramics, cultural influences, education, fine arts, North Carolina Pottery, pottery, richard jacobs, Seagrove, Travel
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Richard,
Thanks for another wonderful post! I’m glad you finally got to meet Bruce and Samantha. They seem like such lovely people! I feel like I already know them from reading the fun and quirky posts they share on their blog, and I hope to make the trip up there one day to meet them in person.
I was really intrigued by the part of this post that was from your 46th letter to Christa. Your book does not seem to include it, but I was interested in seeing what else you might have to say on the topic. I’m not entirely sure I understand everything you are getting at here, and I have to admit that my familiarity with Schiller is wanting.
What I think you are asking is whether we can fully separate a pursuit of beauty from “the raw lust of consumerism” (I’m a bit slow sometimes, so please forgive my lack of comprehension of the obvious….). As you point out, the ability to acquire a thing is independent of that person’s ability to appreciate it, so purchasing an art object does not actually mean that it was, is now, or ever will be seen for the beauty it possesses. It can be, but that means something more than merely the powers of acquisition.
To see the beauty requires a native talent, aptitude, and perhaps some previous exposure or education. And so it seems like the appreciation of beauty is also a faculty that has no natural bounds. More things are appreciated for their beauty than we are able to put a price tag on or round up in our vaults and troves. The beauty of a shadow dappled evening, the glorious cloud spangled sunset, an ephemeral scent of coffee in the morning, a smile that lights up and then is gone, a mathematical proof, a microscopic view of a dust mite…. All these things require an insight into that special feature of our world that can be summed up as the appreciation of beauty.
So it seems more likely that not only is seeing beauty independent of the concerns of consumerism, but it is also prior to them as well. I once discussed this with an anthropologist friend of mine, and it was her feeling that the function of beauty has been with the human race throughout most of our evolution as an intelligent life form. And consumerism is, after all, only a recent manifestation, and perhaps only an accident of certain cultures. Seeing beauty, on the other hand, is a fundamental truth of what it means to be human.
Beauty is how we decide between things, what we like and what we don’t. It divides the world for us. It is the description we have given to those things about the world that we are drawn to. It separates the world into the sacred and the profane. We don’t need to look to find the value of beauty because the value is implicated in the description. Beauty PRESUPPOSES value. It has a normative function, almost akin to a moral imperative. And the difficulty of putting a price on it has relatively insignificant bearing on beauty’s place in the human drama. Beauty is simply everywhere. We find it at the loftiest peaks and in the humblest hovels. In as much as we are guided by the things we believe in we are also guided by our appreciation of beauty. In as much as we are creatures of desire we also desire beauty. This goes for rich and for poor. It is a human need, so that includes everybody. It is in no way attendant upon one’s purchasing power. It is only an elitism of culture that disguises this.
You ask the question: “Do I dare claim that my acquisition of pottery is somehow a more noble impulse than those who prefer to do their shopping at Wal-Mart or Target? Is not the raw lust of consumerism behind all such activities?” Obviously for some it is, and the purchase of an object has no more meaning than a momentary impulse or evidence of a spending addiction. For others the value is no more than an object’s simple function, and even art can be seen more for its apparent function or role that it plays than an inherent beauty.
This is no more obvious than in institutions where the value of beauty has been superseded by monetary worth. At the high end where the most dollars are spent on art it often even comes down to merely the reputation of the artist. Sometimes collectors are guilty of looking at the maker as the only qualifying factor, and the object itself seems almost irrelevant. It is not being purchased from an appreciation of its beauty, its value as something beautiful, but from its worth as an example of this particular artist. Sometimes owning a Da Vinci is more important for its prestige than for the fact of having been blown away by its beauty or hearing the angels speak. It becomes a commodity for all intents and purposes, something mundane and emotionally torpid.
As you put it at the end of your quote, “Without beauty, is not consumerism… finally a state of ‘exhausted desire’?” Things of beauty are as liable as anything else to becoming commodities. But what a thing is ‘worth’ is not always the same as what its value is. Can you put a price on yesterday’s sunset, the difference between two smiles and three? Stripped of outside values like beauty, “The desire of acquisition, ‘restless and plagued by imperious want’” can sometimes look darn near circular, possessing for the mere sake of possessing (or the future promise of trading up, and possessing something more). Things with even outstanding commercial worth can sometimes be notoriously skimpy on value outside the capacity for actual transaction. A piece of paper, some ones and zeros in a computer….
An appreciation of beauty, on the other hand, speaks directly to our animal soul. This object has this effect on us, moves us with admiration and transports us. The appreciation of beauty gives wings to our imagination. We hear the angels sing. And so the quest to surround ourselves with beautiful things is probably as old as the human race. Older perhaps. Beauty does not need to be defended for its role in the games we play with money. Beauty underlies much of what we do and often transcends it.
Like most other things with value, beauty can also be used to serve the human capacity for greed. But its appearance in the machinations of greed do not define it. Worth does not simply translate into value, value into worth. “The raw lust of consumerism” defines the pursuit of beauty no more than the intimacies of love are defined by venal carnality and ‘the oldest profession in the world’. Even the most sublime manifestations of the human spirit can be bartered away and dragged through the soil of tawdry human negligence and misuse.
The truth is that we appreciate beauty all around us and every day of our adult lives. And quite often we are responsible for adding to the things and moments of beauty that sustain the world. We spread joy and laughter as the natural manifestation of our person. We add beauty to the lives of others simply through the kindness and gentleness of our creative souls. Only occasionally are we moved to pay for it. But that’s not a bad thing. Sometimes beauty is worth paying for. There is no need for apologies.
At least that’s my wayward take on things…. Thanks for your thought provoking post!
[...] fabulous collection of letters to Christa Assad collected in the book Searching for Beauty, has another interesting post on his blog. Mostly it is the third in a series he is doing about his trip to visit the potters of [...]
Hello Richard,
I was so sorry to have missed talking with you and Judy on your visit to our shop. I was however happy that you did get some time to spend with Mark and picked out what I thought was a wonderful Jar for your collection.
I enjoyed reading your entry on you visit and we, as potters, treasure folks such as yourself who understand why we continue to get up everyday and make pots.
I hope that you will be able to get back to the area some day soon and that we will have a chance to talk.
Best to you both,
Meredith
My question is how can you NOT have pottery in your life!
Bulldog and Whynot are two of my favorites, great choices!
I enjoyed reading your posts very much, found it through Meredith’s blog.
Dear Carter,
I want to thank you again for your continued interest in my commentary on my blog. I am even more appreciative that you shared your thoughts about my comment with your friends on your own blog. Some potters want to limit their interests to basic technical stuff regarding the making of their pots. I have no problem with that but I think such limited focus leaves out a contextual richness of the aesthetic and intellectual aspects of what they are doing. In a way, it is part of the chronic modesty of the craftsperson – who too often think that what they do does not contain the metaphorical ability to move and inform people beyond function. I looked over your blog and see that you were once a philosophy major at a university. I do not believe that professional philosophy has a monopoly on ideas either but a love of reflecting on the meaning of things and ideas is evident in your writing. We all can try to make sense of our daily lives and what we do with those lives and find our own original meaning. That kind of empowerment motivated my forty years in the classroom.
Well, now that I got that off my chest I will like to turn to your comments. You start off by responding to my feelings and thoughts about collecting pottery where I quote the German Romantic poet Schiller and his thoughts about that desire of acquisition embedded in our behavior. You mentioned that this quote, in my 46th letter to Christa Assad, was not in my book. You are quite right. Only 40 of my 75 letters to Christa were published in the book in 2007. I planned to have the second volume of letters published a year or two later but that never happened. My publisher in Britain was impacted by the serious economic recession evident in both America and Britain and it never happened. This has been quite frustrating for me. I had received very good reviews in leading ceramic periodicals in Australia, Britain and the US and a very good response from potters all over the world. In addition to the bad economic times, books, as I am sure you know, are being transformed in non-object status through electronic appliances such as Kindle. It is a very difficult time for writer right now. I now have, aside from the 2nd volume of letters to Christa, one volume of letters to William Morris, the 19th century English Arts & Crafts leader, two volumes of letters to Walter Benjamin, the Jewish/German cultural critic of the early 20th century, and I am now almost finished with the first volume of letters to Octavio Pax, the Mexican poet of the last half of the 20th century. I hope to locate an interested publisher in either Britain or the US but so far have been unsuccessful. I am sorry I took so long in explaining that but it does impact my morale but so far hasn’t influenced my motivation to write. Writing almost six books in my seventies (78 last month) isn’t too bad for an old man.
Let me get back to your comments and the issue of the relationship between the ability to acquire art and the capacity to benefit from its beauty. We agree they are two different things. I have tried to hone my ability to encounter and engage art as a life long mission. I am still working on it. I like your identification of all the beautiful things we can enjoy during our lives that are available and do not cost us anything – the sunset, the smell of coffee in the morning, a mathematical proof (I am afraid not for me) and the microscopic view of a dust mite. I have been exploring the recent literature on the “aesthetic of everyday life” because I, along with you, do not think we should reserve our celebration of beauty for those special events when we go to a museum or art gallery.
I fully concur that beauty is integral to the experience of our species while consumerism is a much later manifestation of a particular economic and industrial organization of society. Judy, my wife gave me a big, beautiful book for Christmas “The Art Museum”, a huge, heavy book that contains images of art from every corner of the globe from the Ice Age to contemporary art. It starts with the cave paintings and the text declares these magnificent images of great aesthetic beauty. Art is indeed our documentation of what you stated in your blog – “In as much as we are guided by the things we believe in we are also guided by our appreciation of beauty. In as much as we are creatures of desire we also desire beauty.”
I find your commentary most supportive throughout your blog. I was never a rich man – just a schoolteacher. I never sought great material wealth and preferred collecting prints and pottery to getting a swimming pool, a big car and a house higher on the hill. I never thought about collecting as a financial investment and I never sought trophy pieces (which I could not afford anyway) for that reason. I think some friends and family members think that I am not of this world – naive and alien to the central impulses that fuel the appetites and behavior of those around me. To love beauty can bring a form of alienation and certainly a kind of nonconformity as compared to others in my neighborhood.
I just wanted you to know, Carter, how much I appreciate your willingness to respond to my thoughts. I do want to note not only the subtlety and complexity of your ideas but the rich use of language you use to express them. It doesn’t seem fair to me that some makers can use words with the same skill and imagination they use with clay. I have a far more restricted talent but I do love language and the ways it can be used to make the engagement of reading also an aesthetic as well as intellectual experience.
I wish you the very best in the future and your continued love and efforts in making beautiful things.
Your friend,
Richard
Dear Meredith,
Thank you for your positive words about my North Carolina Blog. I am also sorry we didn’t get a chance to meet during my recent visit but I have every intention of visiting North Carolina and Seagrove in particular sometime again in the future. You are quite right – I am not only a collector of pottery but in my writing try to be an advocate for potters and pottery. Your pot looks great in my pottery gallery. I put it on the back wall where I have floor to ceiling book shelves and put some of my recent North Carolina acquisitions in the empty spaces among the books. If you ever make it to the West Coast, please pay us a visit.
Take care,
Richard
Dear Tracy,
Thank you for the kind words regarding my North Carolina blogs. We fully agree that it is a remarkable place and one of the greatest concentration of ceramic art in the world. If you ever make it to the West Coast, please visit my home and pottery gallery. We have lots and lots of North Carolina pottery here. I went to your own blog and viewed and very much enjoyed your work and comments. Best of everything in the future.
Richard
Richard,
Thank you so much for your considerate response! Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I have tried to track you down outside these comments, but it appears that the link to ‘your’ website on this blog has been taken over by someone pushing e-cigarettes and essays about the college life. Yikes!
Anyway, I am still hoping there will be a change in the fortunes of mainstream publishing and that your other books will soon be available to us. In the meantime I am curious if you have explored the newer avenues of e-publishing and self publishing. I don’t know much about either option, and I’m not likely to ever own a kindle, but I would be willing to pay for a downloadable pdf version or even an individually printed copy from a place like blurb.com
I worry that the financial disaster surrounding us is not only making life harder but is removing a certain amount of quality and intelligence from our grasp. It would be a shame if no one but you, Christa, and your editor got to see these final letters and your other collections of essays.
I encourage you to explore these options.
Good luck!
Hope all is well!
Carter
Dear Carter,
I really appreciate your kind thoughts about getting my work published. I am rather demoralized about the whole thing. I guess I am not as resilient as I used to be. I just don’t want to cope with the hassle. I might try the avenues of e-publishing and self-publishing but again I am in the dark about the whole thing and don’t know where to start. Your comment about willing to pay for such a pdf version was quite wonderful. My son promised me he would help me if he is quite busy right now. Your encouragement makes a real difference for me and provides motivation to see if I can do something to get them out. I would be delighted to pay half my royalties to someone who would just get the thing started for me and manage that part of it. I am still getting messages from different parts of the English speaking world that has read my book and sent generous comments to me. I intend to continue writing, as I am now doing it. It is a part of my life and I derive great satisfaction from doing it. Anyway, thanks again for the encouragement. I have a new blog up on pottery as emotional containers. I always look forward to your sensitive reaction. At least my wife (who proofs all my work) and you are reading my work. If you send me your email address, I would be happy to send you my 41st letter I sent to Christa (at no charge!).
Take care,
Richard
rjacobsca@earthlink.net