Face Jug

that's neat I love face jugs, though I only find them at the goodwill and there not old at all, but if the price is right and there cool enough I add em to my collection.

I love face jugs. There's a woman up here that we met at an art fair who makes them and she sells the hell out of them on ebay. She's lucky. She's a sculptress/potter and she gets to do what she loves to do and make phat money doing it....

Hi Surfaceone - the 1st and 3rd pics are from my web site - www.brownpotters.com - the 2nd one I did not have so tks for it.

The first pic is of the 4 brothers - Otto, Davis, Willie and Javan (E.J. Brown) and some of the pots they made at the Brown Brothers Pottery in Arden, NC in 1926. These 4 were some of the most skilled potters in the south and the Asheville area could not support the amount of ware they produces. For that reason, and the fact that they were just not use to staying in one place for very long, all but Davis moved on after a couple of years.

In 1929, Davis - my Grandpa - bought a place just south of this location and started Brown's Pottery - That tin plate - which I have - is of that shop. In 1939, this was torn down to build what we called the new shop in Arden - my web site has many pictures of all 3 locations and I will be putting up more.

Ref family history, I have just come in contact with two distant family members that have traced the history of the family now back to 1717 in Virgina.

Take care - jb

here's her website...

http://www.thepotterswheeltoo.com/face-jugssculpture.html

she's considered one of the top ten face jug maker's in the US. The pics of the ones she has on her website are cheesy compared to the ones I've seen at her shows.

Interesting Jugs, I have hated them from the first time I saw them on the Road Show....to each his own I guess as collectors...

Iron, I am amazed at the power of the written word - someone, usually a professor that has his students do the research for him - puts something in a book and forever after every book written on the subject will use the same info. Seems they read the books that came before and just churn the info without checking it.

Case in point - one of the first books written on southern folk artist had that Grandpa and the other brothers came to Arden, NC in 1923. It was 1925 but virtually every book written since then has the 1923 date.

This story about slaves "bring face jugs" the the US had never been heard of until it was written in a book about pottery a few years back - now, everybody quotes that as absolute fact for where they came from. Considering that people have been putting faces on different objects - including pottery - for 1,000's of years it is not a very logical conclusion but, hey, it makes for a good story.

Also, the last true research on slaves making potter came up with only one known slave in SC actually turning. Slaves were use for all the manual labor but a turner was a very special craft and held in high esteem.

But whatever the origin, my family was certainly some of the first ones that made face jugs and made more of them that any other family. Except for my family, there are almost no photos or notations of any other family making them until many, many years after ours. The other family that is noted to have made them were the Meaders of north Georgia. Up until face jugs became the rage, they were more know for their roosters than face jugs.

The picture on my web site of the second Arden shop - the better one than the tin place but the same shop - has several face jugs hanging from wires on the front pouch - I will put a blowup of them up on my site later.

Take care - jb

it's sweet that you can trace these back through your lineage and have pictures also. I'd never heard of the slave side of it all either. But I don't collect them and rarely see them up here, unless I run across one from Lorrie, or see her at a show. Nice to have family be a central part of that rich folk pottery art