What do face jugs represent?
Scholars think that face jugs may have had religious or burial significance, or that they reflect the responses of people attempting to live and maintain their personal identities under harsh conditions. Many were used for pickling, salting meat, storing lard and for holding vinegars.
What are face jugs used for today?
Modern interpretations started appearing in the same regions during the 1940s. Face jugs were fully functional pieces that served the practical purpose of holding and pouring liquid. Various slave owner accounts hold that African-American slaves would use their face jugs to carry water into the fields with them.
What influenced the making of face jugs by Southern folk pottery?
Most scholars agree that the first face jugs were made in Edgefield, South Carolina by African slaves who labored in the pottery factories there. The slaves had to fit these pots in between the large jugs and jars without taking any kiln space devoted to cash income.
What was the name of the pottery in South Carolina that first made the face jugs?
Shaw’s Creek pottery
The potter made his first Southern face vessels around 1838 at the Shaw’s Creek pottery. He likely inspired other potters, including enslaved Africans, to make the entertaining novelties, which became associated with the Edgefield District soon after Chandler’s arrival there.
What are face jugs based off of?
Face jugs are nothing more than a clay nose between clay eyes over a clay mouth, all on a clay jug. Historically, they’ve been a source of Southern comfort to generations of potters, bored with making the same bowl again and again.
What medium are face jugs typically?
Description: Initially made by slaves and later by free African-Americans, South Carolina’s early Edgefield district face vessels are wheel-thrown from stoneware clay and fired with alkaline glazes that range in color from sandy brown to olive green.
Who made face jugs?
African American slaves
Face Jug ca. 1860–80 Face jugs were made by African American slaves and freedmen working in potteries in the Edgefield District of South Carolina, an area of significant stoneware production in the nineteenth century.
What do people in the Carolinas think about face jugs?
Face jugs illicit a lot of strong feelings in the Carolinas. Ask potters or collectors what they think about face jugs and you will likely hear some strong opinions expressed. People generally fall into two camps: they like them or they hate them. And to be fair, I can understand or sympathize with both sides of the argument.
Why does a pottery jug have a face?
In light of the anthropomorphic language we employ to describe pottery (foot, waist, belly, shoulder, neck), a jug’s form seems to be a perfect abstraction of a head. So applying the face to a jug can almost be seen as the punchline in the discussion of pottery form and human anatomy.
Where did the first face jugs come from?
African Ancestry. Most scholars agree that the first face jugs were made in Edgefield, South Carolina by African slaves who labored in the pottery factories there. They are very small (the examples above measure between 5 and 9 inches tall and are thought to have been made between 1860 and 1880).
Where do Marvin and Lynn Bailey make face jugs?
They are food-safe-made for serving, not for storing. MARVIN & LYNN Bailey are self-taught potters from Edgefield, SC, who employ many Southern Folk Pottery traditions, while also exploring new ideas and creating imaginative one-of-a-kind pieces.