Ceramics in America (2010)

The 2010 volume of Ceramics in America is the second of two issues to document the results of a multiyear research project on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century earthenware traditions of the North Carolina piedmont. This issue, a companion to the 2009 volume expands, current preconceptions of North Carolina slipware by identifying other regional ceramic traditions. In tandem, the two volumes serve as a compendium catalog for the traveling exhibition Art in Clay: Masterworks of North Carolina Earthenware, sponsored by Old Salem Museums Gardens, the Chipstone Foundation, and the Caxambas Foundation.

Setting a new standard for American ceramic studies, this transdisciplinary effort draws on archaeology, art history, religion, ceramics, technology, and many other areas of inquiry resulting in a substantively revised history of this much-admired North Carolina pottery tradition. Many examples of highly decorative slipware and intriguing figural bottles are illustrated here for the first time with the precise color photography of Gavin Ashworth.