Humble Components

(June 29 - December 15, 2024)

Slip-decorated earthenware platter and components ingredients by Hal & Eleanor Pugh.

When you break it down (not literally!), pottery, the product of a craft that likely originated independently in multiple regions around the world thousands of years ago and continues to be practiced in North Carolina today, is really just composed of humble components—clay and various minerals and elements.

In our Humble Components show, you'll see old and contemporary pieces representing various North Carolina traditions and techniques: Native American pit-fired, slip-decorated redware, salt-glazed, alkaline-glazed, wood ash-glazed, Chinese blue, crystalline, and chrome red, next to samples of the humble components from which some of those pieces were made.

Now, while pottery may be composed of humble components, the process by which each piece becomes a remarkable piece of pottery is through the work of potters - those artists and alchemists, if you will - who combine those humble components in various ways and forge them in fire (or heat as the case may be) to create something magical - something that can be used or admired for generations, something that can potentially endure and be found in an archaeological site thousands of years from now.

Contemporary examples in our Humble Components show include work by Chad Brown (Seagrove), Mary Farrell (Seagrove), Matt Hallyburton (Connelly Springs), Fred Johnston (Seagrove), William & Pam Kennedy (Seagrove), Ben Owen III (Seagrove), Travis Owens (Seagrove), Hal & Eleanor Pugh (New Salem), and David Stuempfle (Seagrove).