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Information:
Local potter uses technology as tool
By Carolyn Mathews
Lin Craven’s family has been shaping art from White County clay for nine generations. Craven's hands-on techniques now guide the movements of human hands the world over, as she lends her expertise to the computer generation.
Craven is a ninth-generation potter from Mossy Creek, where Cravens and Meaders and Dorseys and Pitchfords crafted syrup pitchers and kraut jars, stoneware churns and "little brown jugs." She was featured online in 2000 as part of the Local Legacies project of the 2000 Bicentennial of the Library of Congress. Mossy Creek pottery could be found as an example of southern folklife on the Bicentennial Website.
Craven will again share the area's folk pottery history in The New Georgia Encyclopedia, an electronic production that will be available to every school and public library in the state. It will be also be available to anyone, anywhere with Internet access. The encyclopedia will be launched in October 2003.
The first state online encyclopedia is a project of the Georgia Humanities Council and is sponsored by the State of Georgia, the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, the Georgia Power Foundation, BellSouth, the Peyton Anderson Foundation, James Cox Foundation, UPS Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Historic Chattahoochee Commission. It will cover topics on history music, art, business, sports, science and medicine and will be continually revised and updated.
Craven was recommended for the encyclopedia by Dr. John Burrison, an English and folklore professor at Georgia State University. Burrison wrote "Brothers in Clay: The Story of Georgia Folk Pottery."
"The Cravens are one of the oldest pottery families in White County," Burrison said. Two Craven brothers brought the art to the Mossy Creek area from Randolph County, N.C. in 1825. A third brother, Isaac Newton Craven, went on to Atlanta. "He established the first known pottery in the city limits of Atlanta. It stood right where Sparks Hall, a classroom building at Georgia State, now stands," Burrison said. The first known Potter in Lin Craven’s family was Peter Craven, who lived in colonial Orange County (now Randolph County) from 1712-1792.
Burrison said the pottery community at Mossy Creek grew to be one of the two largest in the state, with over 80 potteries. "I don't think it was so much that the clay was that high a quality, but it was an attractive way to make some extra money after the Civil War when money was hard to come by," he said.
After the depression era of the 1930s, many Mossy Creek families stopped making pottery, including the Cravens. The Meaders families was one of the few that continued with the tradition.
Although her family had made pottery for generations, Lin Craven's great grandfather, John Hicks Craven (1860-1950) was the last potter in the family.
"Lin had heard about the pottery tradition in her family all her life, and when her kids grew up she decided to learn how to do it," Burrison said. Craven learned the technique from master potter Bobby Ferguson and his wife, Mary of Gillsville. "I'd always worked with my hands and I wanted to try something new," Craven said.
"When she started, Ferguson told her to learn to throw one design and stick with it until she perfected it, and she picked one of the most difficult ones, a ring jug," Burrison said.
Craven said ring jugs are her favorite, and she alters the traditional designs to make decorative pieces. In the olden days, ring jugs were used as water flasks. They could be carried over the arm or attached to the hame knob on a mule’s harness. Burrison said that there were even ring jugs glazed on one side so that the sun would reflect, keeping the water cool.
One of Craven’s ring jugs, shaped like a rattlesnake, is part of a permanent display at the Atlanta History Museum entitled, "Shaping Tradition: Folk Arts in a Changing South."
Burrison said that while today's potters use many of the old techniques, they integrate new, time saving and design-improving technological shortcuts as well. Pottery enthusiasts today look for the decorative value of the piece than for the usefulness, he said. Craven says she strives for color in her designs. "It has to talk to me," she said.
Rev: 07/01/2005
Carolyn Mathews
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