Saturday, January 8, 2011

The Big Move!!!


"Get 'em up, move 'em out"!!


After 6 years at Old Canal Pottery in Augusta, GA, I'm locating my pottery works to the old Miles Mill/Baynham Pottery tract near Trenton, SC. This historic site was the location for several potteries from the mid to late 1800's. Some of the previous potters who worked at this site include John Lewis Miles, Willie and Tommy Hahn, JG Baynham, Mark Baynham, Horace Baynham and countless itinerant potters. There is evidence that points to the famous slave potter Dave Drake having worked here. This site is one of the most important pottery sites in the Old Edgefield District of SC and is where most of the 19th c face jugs were likely made by slaves or former slaves. The site is currently under archaeological examination by Dr. Mark Newell. The site was recently featured in the PBS show, the History Detectives and will be featured in several more video productions under way.

In addition to Dexter Pottery, the site is home to the Edgefield Stoneware Research Center. It provides an educational museum, visitors center and training facility for the study of alkaline glazed stoneware. Students will receive hands on experience in the field doing archaeological work. Dexter Pottery will offer workshops in the instruction and the making of traditional southern alkaline-glazed stoneware.

My Old Edgefield-style pottery is made in the same tradion as the originals -- using locally-dug clays, which are hand-turned, then ash-glazed, then fired in a typical wood-fired southern groundhog kiln. My work is 100% authentic.

For your convenience, I've re-posted all of my informative Old Canal Pottery Blogs at my new site, Dexter Pottery. Please drop by my new site and check out my new work, as well as new blogs on southern pottery.