For immediate release
Pottery Tells the Story of Mountain Heritage
and
Folk Traditions
of Southern Appalachia
When the doors of the Northeast Georgia Folk Pottery Museum open in September, 2006, visitors will be invited to absorb the spirit of Georgia’s Appalachian people through the display and illumination of nearly 200 years of pottery making. As benefactor and collector Dean Swanson phrases it, “When you start to learn the history of these people, their pots tell stories.
The new Museum will be part of the Sautee-Nacoochee Center, a campus and program developed during the past twenty years to display history and the arts of the area and serve as a community gathering place. The Center is located on Georgia Highway 255, in the historic Sautee-Nacoochee Valley, four miles from Alpine Helen, the most popular visitor destination in the northeast Georgia mountains.
The Northeast Georgia Folk Pottery Museum and its extensive collection of pottery dating from the 1840s will be a gift from Dean and Kay Swanson, retired community and business leaders who want to preserve their treasures and share them with all who can enjoy and learn from them. The Swansons had a modest home collection of pottery in 1999, when they visited with potter and local historian Michael Crocker at his studio and were inspired to expand their interests in the folk art tradition. At Michael Crocker’s suggestion, the Swansons acquired a significant private collection of 40 items that led them to build the present inventory of more than 150 pieces.
A major reason to build the Folk Pottery Museum is to provide a space where all these items can be seen at one time, complemented by audio-visual presentations, programs, demonstrations by local potters, seminars and special tours. Dr. John Burrison, Georgia State University folklorist and author of 1983’s “Brothers in Clay: the Story of Georgia Folk Pottery,” serves as Curator of the Swanson collection and the new Museum. He notes that “Northeast Georgia is one of the few areas of the United States with a living, and thriving, tradition of folk pottery, one that increasingly attracts the interest of folk-art collectors and scholars. The Museum will interpret both the artistic and historic dimensions of this heritage, offering a unique understanding of the importance of craftsmanship in the lives of ordinary Southerners of both the past and present.”
According to Dr. Burrison’s research, north Georgia’s pottery tradition was, and still is, concentrated in two communities near the Sautee-Nacoochee Valley location of the new Museum: Mossy Creek south of Cleveland in White County and Gillsville, just north of Gainesville. Mossy Creek has been home to more than eighty folk potters since the 1820s. Foremost among them are Cheever and Lanier Meaders, who carried on the 19th-century tradition of ash- and lime-glazed stoneware. Lanier became nationally famous in the 1970s for his face jugs, and his success encouraged other north Georgians with traditional pottery backgrounds to return to the craft. Visitors enthused after a visit to the Folk Pottery Museum will find a variety of shops and galleries nearby to follow up their interests.
Architect Robert Cain came to his commission to design the Northeast Georgia Folk Pottery Museum with a particular vision: “Folk pottery has traditionally produced an unadorned utilitarian ware. Each type of ware has, over the years, been reduced to a simple, elegant form that exactly serves its purpose. Yet, each individual maker has taken those traditional forms and added a bit of his own personality. The added individuality is the essence of art of the form and the art has become more obvious in latter-day ware as folk potters lost their traditional market to mass-produced goods and began to use decoration and whimsy to attract purchasers.” Cain comments that his Museum design was inspired by photos of the Meaders’ family covered, open-air studio published in “Brothers in Clay.” He incorporates maximum use of natural daylight to display the collection and to encourage viewers to look out at the Valley landscape that is part of the folk art heritage. A glass-enclosed bridge will connect the Museum to the main brick structure of the Sautee-Nacoochee Center, a former mountain school that now houses a local history museum, art studio, gallery and small theater.
Sautee-Nacoochee Center Executive Director Stuart Miller will also direct operations of the Northeast Georgia Folk Pottery Museum. He sees the new Museum as a link with folk art and cultural heritage throughout the United States and around the world. “Each culture has its own tradition of folk pottery. I see unlimited possibilities of establishing new relationships with institutions that have collections, both in Georgia and internationally.” He intends the Museum to attract new audiences from metropolitan Atlanta and the southeastern United States. While some visitors may be inspired to explore deeper and begin their own folk art collections, all will have an opportunity to connect to some of the richest heritage in the American South.
“Education and preservation are our main goals,” says Museum benefactor Kay Swanson, who fondly recalls her first exposure to northeast Georgia folk potters as a child while accompanying her dad on what he called “over the mountain rambles” in his 1939 Dodge. “Sometimes we take for granted that these things will be here for our grandchildren, “ she concludes, “and we shouldn’t.”
For more information about the museum call (706) 878-3300 or email cbrooks@snca.org