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Audio transcripts for: Norman Smith on the Early Days Oscar Smith Speculates On A SuccessorPottery
South Carolina, with its rich clay deposits, is the home to two different, but very important ceramic traditions - Catawba earthenware and alkaline-glazed stoneware. Before European contact in the 16th century, the Catawba Nation controlled much of what is now South Carolina and most of the North Carolina Piedmont. This tradition has continued through elder potters sharing their knowledge and skills with younger generations. While their techniques remain ancient, they have adapted their forms to changing markets. Kinship and community were also important in the development and diffusion of the alkaline-glazed stoneware tradition during the nineteenth century. Using European and African forms and labor the Edgefield, South Carolina, potteries produced containers used primarily for food preservation and preparation. As some potters migrated west and to other areas in the southeast, they spread the alkaline-glazed tradition into Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi.
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Stephen Ferrell has been an advocate for the alkaline-glazed stoneware pottery tradition for almost forty years. Ferrell and his father, Terry, began collecting and studying alkaline-glazed stoneware...Photo
Robert F. Ferguson, Ferguson Pottery, Gillsville, Hall County. Interview recorded June 1981. The great-great grandson of Charles Ferguson, who moved to Georgia from Edgefield, South Carolina, Robert...