Sometimes I have to take stock.  I have a problem that I’ve contended with most of my seventy plus years.  I’m very much a learner, I’ve been told.  I love art and 

craft, but I tend to appreciate the work of others.  I don’t have the patience to spend months on one creative project in order to become expert.  I want to gather knowledge about many fields that are often connected in some ways, like sewing and knitting, or metal sculpture and pottery, or architecture and preservation, and on and on.  But I will cultivate a basic knowledge before I move on to the next topic.  I then begin to collect art(ifacts) relating to that knowledge.  And this brings up my household issue.

I started with inherited furniture from the 1800s and I have a barn full!  Then as an art student and teacher I began collecting watercolors, then oils, then sculpture, then baskets, then jewelry, then vintage snow paintings, and most recently, southeastern stoneware pottery.

Now, the collections own me.  I have to rotate items since every spot on the wall or a flat surface is taken up with something.  Folks have different takes on the place.  Some ignore the collections completely.  Some come in and say something like, “You must like chickens.”  Others start wondering around looking at individual pieces they are attracted to and many of those say, “This is like a museum.”   The maid just raises the fee.  

I’ve gone through basket collecting in this manner.  First, it was a casual collection of Charleston baskets, which extended into Native American baskets on long car trips, then to miniatures when space became an issue, and finally to the point that I don’t collect baskets anymore.  Other collections like oil paintings followed a similar progression.

But, I still have a problem with the southeastern stoneware.  It is such a visually enticing clay art and that is enhanced by the fact that the artists are still producing amazing pieces.  I just have to help keep this group of artists working!  So, I have a niche that I favor, and I will purchase face jugs if they are a bargain.  But I have a problem with those chickens I mentioned earlier.  I just get a kick out of these whimsies.  Two-headed, three-headed, smoking, chicken waters, spotted Guineas, with snakes, with chicken pox, in pairs, as banks!  Tobacco spit glaze, frog skin glaze, cobalt blue, candy apple red, school bus yellow.  I could go on and on for there is no end to a potter’s imagination.  

And the pottery shows are starting!  Hickory, NC, in March, Gillsville, GA, in June and again in October, Sautee, GA, on Labor Day.  I’m missing lots of others in this list, but there’s no way to cover them all.

I must restrain myself this year!  But I say that every year.   

See you at a show!

Anne Peden, Phd.
Greenville County Historic Preservation Commission
Fork Shoals Historical Society
Piedmont Historical Preservation Society ●