Talking with the Turners

In 1981, University of South Carolina art professor Charles Mack traveled the South to document traditional pottery. A departure for Mack, whose research normally focused on Italian Renaissance architecture, he also had a passion for traditional pottery. Supported by a Research and Productive Scholarship Grant from the university, he set out to document every traditional potter still working in the region. Mack collected over two hundred pieces of pottery, took hundreds of photographs, and recorded over twenty hours of interviews with more than forty potters. Mack’s research resulted in the recently published book “Talking with the Turners: Conversations with Southern Folk Potters” and was a major component of an exhibit at McKissick Museum in the fall of 2006.

View the potters by state below.