Day 10.... Face Jugs and Other Appliances

My special piece of pottery is almost dry.



One of my Jugs

 A friend dropped by yesterday and bought some pottery birds for her garden. She also ordered a face jug.  Face Jugs have always been a favorite with folk potters.  The Egyptians made faces on jugs... most cultures have. The history of face jugs in the USA goes back to our beginnings.

Just google "face jug" images and you will find hundreds of photos of old and new jugs from around the world. Some are scary, some are funny.  It's a lot like playing with Mr. Potato Head. You just put in some eyes, a nose, a mouth, teeth, ears, squish and move them around its a great pass time. You usually don't know what you will turn up with till it's done and the expression comes out.

Bennington Potters in Vermont made Toby face jugs and mugs early on. This type of pottery was brought over from England even earlier. Slaves in the south made face jugs, perhaps as effigies of loved ones or ideas passed down from the pottery their ancestors had fashioned in Africa.

Like many old traditional crafts, ideas were passed on, embellished and adapted to the individual crafter.

In the 1800s, the people living in this house were crafters and tradesmen by circumstance.  I have found loom beaters, a spinning wheel and a tape loom in my attic. The women made cloth from the flax and wool grown on this property and neighboring fields.   The tradition of spinning and weaving still continue today.

"The things which men have made... are inevitably the best witness. They cannot lie, and what they say is of supreme importance. For they speak of man's soul and they show who are his gods... Eric Gill

And so I continue to hang onto the simpler way of life. I like electricity and indoor plumbing, but sometimes all these modern gadget's we are bombarded with do not make our lives simpler. New computers and electronics break and cannot be fixed by the common man or need upgrades. Cell phones mean you can talk to everybody all the time.. I can't be interrupted while I am potting and weaving by talking on the phone all day. And how many outlets for appliances to make life easier do you have? I have 4 individual ones in each room. That means I can have a refrig, toaster, coffeepot and my daughters microwave in my kitchen... and that's all!  With no cupboard space in this old house because of all the windows, where the heck would I store food choppers, ice cream makers, juicers, bread machines, carving knives and blenders?

"Mention also must be made of those who, sometimes, against their wishes, I suspect, have kept aloof from the tendency toward modernity; who cook at old fashioned fires, old fashioned dishes and spread them upon old fashioned tables; who, mow with old fashioned scythe snaths and cart hay on old fashioned ox carts into old fashioned barns; who wear old fashioned clothes in old fashioned kitchens and eat apples grown on old fashioned trees."    --Charles D. Hubbard

Till next time...

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