Tour Ceramicist Jim McDowell’s Home Studio in North Carolina
“I have five gallon clay buckets when I make pots,” says Jim McDowell, “and the mud that I put in the buckets – now the ancients were spitting out tobacco juice. I do not do it. He’s laughing. “I just poured in some apple cider vinegar.”
Photo: Jan Fisher
Facial jugs have a long history, dating back to generations of slaves who created pottery for spiritual purposes. Ceramist Jim McDowell carries on this tradition with his own work. He tells me that his ancestors “merged three religions: ancestor worship in Africa, voodoo in the islands, and Christianity,” and facial jugs were one of them. Because slaves were not allowed to have tombstones, ceramics were often used to mark their graves; placing a face jug in it served a double duty. “They were so ugly they scared the devil away from your grave so your soul could go to heaven,” McDowell says. And once settled near the house of the living, they could ward off evil.
Gallerist Alex Tieghi-Walker introduced us; he discovered McDowell on Instagram about a year ago. McDowell lives in Weaverville, NC with his wife, Jan, and they told me about the art of this tradition.
McDowell was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and raised in Washington, DC His father, James T. McDowell, was a naval man and artist and was known to the family as Ol’Pa. The McDowells have many Ol’Pa paintings in their art-filled home.
McDowell’s studio is across from the garden of his house. This is where he brings his face pitchers to life, as shown in the different stages of clay working. Photo: Jan Fisher.
McDowell’s studio is across from the garden of his house. This is where he brings his face pitchers to life, as shown here at various stages of key work …
McDowell’s studio is across from the garden of his house. This is where he brings his face pitchers to life, as shown in the different stages of working with clay. Photo: Jan Fisher.
He learned to use a potter’s wheel when he was in the army stationed near Nuremberg, Germany, in the late 1960s. But even before, he says, “when I was 18 months old, I was was in the sandbox playing with a substance that I thought was clay; there was a smell and I liked it. And that stuck with me. He laughs, perhaps thinking that it might seem strange to remember such an ancient memory, but the work for which McDowell is increasingly famous speaks of a blood memory that stretches back centuries. . McDowell’s grandfather Boyce McDowell told him that his great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Evangeline was a potter when she was enslaved in Jamaica.
McDowell’s personal journey to working with clay began 35 years ago and really took off after signing up for a workshop with potter David Robinson in Weare, New Hampshire. As McDowell explains on his website, he will often write pitchers on his face to honor the bravery of slave and potter David Drake, who not only was literate but signed his name on the pottery he created.
Jan McDowell named this face jug Fancy. It illustrates various stories that go back to customs born out of necessity during the slave trade. The blue mother-of-pearl glaze gives a soft aura. Her husband said, “There is a story in a book called Agriculture in black and research which reveals that when women knew they were being taken captive or sold from one plantation to another, they planted seeds in their hair. And so it got me on fire. I made four or five faces with seeds in their hair.
Photo: Jan Fisher
The living room includes “our little collection of folk art,” says Jan. “In the middle, it’s one of those old tobacco boxes; now you see them reproduced, but it’s an authentic one from North Carolina. There is always a rope hanging on it. The painting in the middle is by Lisa Cain. The surrounding work is by the artist Roff Graves, which showed McDowell’s work in his gallery.
Photo: Jan Fisher
In a corner of the living room, behind rocker Eames, is a painting of a saxophone player by McDowell’s father. A McDowell blue ceramic mask hangs on the wall by a vintage turquoise lamp found on eBay. The little stool, she says, “is kind of a trinket from an import store. I didn’t even pay $ 30 for it.
Photo: Jan Fisher
A view from the dining table towards the wall with a landscape painting and a self-portrait of McDowell’s father. McDowell’s facial jugs are lined up below the landscape, and a selection of her pots sits above the glass cabinet.
Photo: Jan Fisher
The opposite wall includes a sign for a show McDowell did with his father; the painted driftwood piece Heaven or hell is inside you choose, by Roff Graves; and a recycled pallet wood clock, found on Etsy. Below is another of McDowell’s sculptures.
Photo: Jan Fisher
Three views of a very special face jug that Jan chose as McDowell’s gift after he offered her. “I call it my engagement ring,” she laughs. He sensed he was overheated, but she stuck with his choice. “I think it’s beautiful. It’s pure black, and sometimes Jim puts glass on some faces, so the glass melts and runs down his face like tears. McDowell tells me he calls this room Labashia, which, he says, “means ‘babies,’ and that means she’s my baby.” Photo: Jan Fisher.
Three views of a very special face jug that Jan chose as McDowell’s gift after he offered her. “I call it my engagement ring,” she said …
Three views of a very special face jug that Jan chose as McDowell’s gift after he offered her. “I call it my engagement ring,” she laughs. He sensed he was overheated, but she stuck with his choice. “I think it’s beautiful. It’s pure black, and sometimes Jim puts glass on some faces, so the glass melts and runs down his face like tears. McDowell tells me he calls this room Labashia, which, he says, “means ‘babies,’ and that means she’s my baby.” Photo: Jan Fisher.
One of McDowell’s jugs in the garden, planted with ferns. “About a year after the studio was built,” Jan says, “we were able to buy a big supply for all the new pieces and the pieces that aren’t in the galleries, so I went and picked out a few that I wanted. love.” It’s their own little sanctuary.
Photo: Jan Fisher
