Carolina Environmental Diversity Explorations

Clays of the Piedmont · By Dirk Frankenberg

art pottery on display

Figure 18. These pottery sculptures represent the acme of achievement in North Carolina pottery. (Photograph by the author. More about the photograph)

Figure 18 shows some examples of the finished product of the potter’s art. These amazingly large objects were made by Mark Hewitt and fired in the kiln shown in Figure 15.

These pots represent the acme of modern Piedmont art pottery in North Carolina. They are made with a unique combination of technical knowledge of ceramics and their properties, artistic knowledge of design and decoration, and historical knowledge of human use of clay. North Carolinians have every right to be proud of their pottery heritage and the beautiful and useful objects that are produced as a consequence of it.

Definitions

kiln n.
Any of various ovens for hardening, burning, or drying substances such as grain, meal, or clay, especially a brick-lined oven used to bake or fire ceramics.
clay n.
A sedimentary material with grains smaller than 0.004 millimeters in diameter.