Our interest in clay and ceramics are kindled at a very
young ages in the public school system. Making an ash tray or casting your hand
in plaster were common art projects when I was growing up. Sculpting images on
pottery has been passed down through our social networks. Watch a child playing
in dirt or mud, there is always a face or figurine created at some point. This
notion of creating something out of dirt has facinated me for over fifty years.
Not until I started working with paper mache did I venture towards clay work. I
started out with air drying clay then moved to oven cured clays and finally to
real dirt. It was fascinating to see mud transformed by heat into rock. This
started my life long process of learning about clay and clay techniques.
I was first exposed to face jugs by the internet. I was
attempting to sell some of my creations on Ebay when I stumble across various
primitive jugs for sale. There were a wide range of jugs from antique or
classic old jugs from well known potters to contemporary potters with highly
detailed sculptured jugs. I saw this as an avenue to create unique pieces of
art while giving me a high level of flexibility in how I created the piece. The
more I researched face jugs, the more my curiosity grew. Finally I realized that
there was very little in the way of photographic or written history of face
jugs especially the development of face jugs in the Americas beyond hear-say about
southern slaves and their traditions. This motivated me to write this article.
I hope that the information and theory presented here will stimulate your
interest in these very unique segments in the American folk art movement.
What is a face jug?
A face jug is a thrown potter jug made from earthware,
stoneware or porcelain with the addition of pieces of formed clay to give the
jug the appearance of a face. The face can be very primitive or very sculpture
like in appearance. Most jugs are based on traditional utilitarian jug shapes
which go back many hundreds of years. You will see face jugs also referred to
as “ugly jugs” or “grotesques jugs” for obvious reasons.
The jug to the left is a Lanier Meaders jug (cir. 1975)7.
History
Everybody who has researched face jugs has found the
standard references to the origin of face jugs. They are 1) African slaves
brought the idea with them when they were brought to the Americas and slave
potters created face jugs to ward off evil spirits from their homes or the
graves of their kin, 2) Face jugs were made as a way of breaking the boredom of
pottery throwing and were for entertainment, 3) The jugs were made to protect
moon shine or poisons from young children. The father would tell the story to
the children that there is a “boggy man” in the closet that will get you. Once
the children look in the closet, see the “booggy man”, it was assured that the
jug of liquid was safe.
It is the common belief that face jugs became more common in
the early 1800’s notably in the Edgefield South Carolina area which was the
center of the southern pottery industry until the mid 1800’s. Few written
accounts are available describing the face jug movement in this area. One
notable potter from this area whose jugs are still around today is known as
Dave the slave.
Dave the Slave
Dave the slave worked in the Edgefield, South Carolina area. Dave was unusual in
that he could read and write. Dave was owned by publishers of a newspaper in
Edgefield and served on his owner’s plantation. In the face of adversity and
under the risk of severe punishment, Dave the slave inscribed rebellious
sayings on his jugs and even signed a few jugs. There is no record of Dave
making face jugs but his work is one of the few direct links to this time and gives
a perspective from a slave potter’s point of view.
An Ancestor’s Account
The following description of the history of the African -
American face jugs is the results of research by potter Jim McDowell and his
discussions with family members1.
“Some many years ago while attending a gathering after a
family funeral, I found myself intrigued by a conversation between my father
and some elder family members. They were talking about something called face
jugs and how they related to our family history.
This is the African-American face-jug oral history as it was
passed down in my family, the McDowell-Poston family. My father, James T.
McDowell, Sr., told me the story as he received it from his father, Boyce
McDowell, who was a tombstone maker in Gaffney,
South Carolina, and he got it
from his father, my great-grandfather who lived during slavery times.
Slaves were not allowed to have tombstones, they said, so
sometimes pottery or even a face jug served as their grave markers. My
great-great-great-great Aunt Evangeline was a village slave potter in Jamaica.
She made face jugs, too. The story handed down from Evangeline was that slaves
placed personal items on their loved ones' graves along with face jugs. The
ugly face on the jug evolved something like this: Slaves from Africa
revered their ancestors and participated in ancestor honoring, or what we might
call ancestor worship. African slaves were taken to the Caribbean
to be acclimated and there they picked up the religion of voodoo.
Eventually ancestor worship, voodoo, and Christianity
amalgamated into the tradition of the face jug. Many slaves who came to this
country converted to Christianity and acquired a belief in the devil. They
combined all their beliefs and came up with the ugly face jug. Apparently it
had to be ugly enough to scare the devil away from your grave so your soul
could go to heaven. When he was still living, my father gave me a face jug he
acquired on a trip to Jamaica
many decades ago. It is crudely made with rough features and I treasure it.
Some researchers from the Smithsonian contacted me once to
see if I could add anything to their studies of face jugs. They told me of
meeting an old black farmer in the South who took them out into a field
believed to be a slave burial ground. He showed them shards of pottery and what
looked like face jug remnants in the earth.
This topic has no written history, but the oral tradition in
my family, along with other information I've gleaned. I put a cigar in the
mouths of some face jugs. Slaves were not allowed to smoke so the cigar
signifies defiance, the man who does not consider himself a "boy,"
and of course delivers, symbolically, a strong epithet to the slaveholder.”
Many of these tales of the history of face jugs most likely
stems from the romanticizing of the plight of southern slaves and a
justification for the primitive designs of these jugs by their makers in an
effort to cater to the growing tourist industry. Slave potters did influence
the history of face jugs in the southern United States. There is no
definitive answer since the history is mostly handed down from generation to
generation by stories told at family gatherings.
A declining Market
The market for potter vessels declined on the second half of
the 1800’s with the end of the Civil War, no slavery and the development of
mass production techniques for tin cans, glass jugs, jars and storage vessels.
Glass became cheaper to make and was more resistant to chemicals such as acids.
As techniques were refined, glass became lighter and stronger than the typical
earthware jug. The production of jugs required the manufacturer to be near a
source of clay (most clay veins were limited in size), once dried, the pottery required
a time consuming firing to vitrify the pottery. This process required a large
and skilled labor force to dig the raw clay, mix the clay into a workable consistency,
throw the pottery, cut and transport the wood required for the firing and man
the kiln during the long firing process. Once a vein of clay ran out, the whole
operation would have to move to a new source of clay creating long shutdown
periods. It was ultimately the industrial revolution, development of
inexpensive glass making techniques and economics that pushed the clay pot from
the shelves in America.
A New Insurgency
Pottery maintained a strong hold
in the rural south since the industrial revolution was slow to propagate
through the back woods and mountains of the south. Much of the commerce in
these areas was based on the barter system so an individual potter could
squeeze out a basic living. Travelers and salesmen would make their way through
the rural south and see these unique pieces and bring them back to populated
areas were the art qualities of the jugs and glazes were appreciated. This
created a new market for pottery as tourist gifts and collectables. The face
jug markets goes through cycle as does other collectables market but face jugs maintain
a loyal core group of collectors throughout the world.
North American Influence
One often overlooked
historical influence of face jugs comes from the Myan and Aztec cultures of Mexico and Central America.
Ritual face vessels have been found in the ruin of these cultures. As a result
of the Spanish invasion of the Aztec home lands and the destruction of the
Aztec culture, many souvenirs were collected by the conquistadors and taken
back to eastern North America. This influence
had to make its way back to Spain
and Europe if only by way of profiteer imitators selling “artifacts” from the
new world through out Europe.
This
vessel to the left represents the rain god Tlaloc. On the outside of the
vessel, Tlaloc features goggle-like eyes and
two fangs; a serpent surrounds his mouth forming what looks like a moustache.
The god wears a white headdress, a reference to the mountains where the deity
was believed to keep his waters, a place where fertility flourishes and water
flows down the hills to nourish the soil. In whole, the vessel symbolizes the
uterus and the feminine powers of creation.2
Celtic
Influence
The British Isles also possess
a long history of face jugs.
The cup to the left is the Gundestrup Caldron, a Celtic
ritual vessel, 1st century bc. Inside on the left is Cernunnos, lord
of the animals3.
Recently an archaeological dig uncovered a rare ceramic
face-mask jug dating back to the 13th century at a site in Rothesay in Argyll,
Scotland4.
Mediterranean Influence
Looking through ancient Europe
produces Roman, Greek jugs and mugs.
To the left is a Roman face jug of a
Satyr's Head from100 AD5.
French Influence
This is a Sarreguemines "Puck" face jug. The
porcelain factory Utzschneider and Company made ceramics in Sarreguemines, Lorraine,
France,
beginning about 1775. The company made majolica after 1860. "Puck" is
one of several different face jugs made in various sizes. "Puck" was
also made with different decorations.
This jug was probably made between c.1890
and c.19256.
To say that face jugs were solely a by product of one
influence would be incorrect. Many different cultures have influenced the world
of the face jugs especially the melting pot of the United States.
References:
2.
Aztec Art Part 2 -
MANUEL AGUILAR-MORENO, Ph.D
3.
British History Museum
4.
BBC News
5.
BidAncient Cambridgeshire, UK.
6.
Kovels.com – James
Kovel
7.
Antiques Road Show
– Allan Katz