Red Brick Black Mountain White Clay

As Benfey is wont to do, he finds a sketchy thread to tie things together--in this case, clay. And with his flighty style, he does a questionable job of it. Though if one ignores those efforts and just goes with the flow of the various vignettes and ramblings, the narrative can be enjoyable.

The first part introduces his mother, who grew up in Piedmont North Carolina and had an artistic bent. It is here the clay journey starts, simply by a piece of Jugtown pottery his mother owned and memories of meeting the couple who started the Jugtown Pottery shop having searched out the folk potters of the state from Raleigh to Seagrove. These memories and experiences she embedded in young Benfey. Later in his teens when his parents moved to Japan for a while-- seemingly his father took a teaching position there--he takes up pottery himself. We’re also introduced to his father, a German Jewish immigrant who was sent to live with a German family in England when Hitler came on the scene. He completed his education there, receiving a PhD and then went to live and work in America. No clay involved yet on his side, but he was related to a German artist couple--his uncle and aunt.

And it was this couple, Josef and Anni Albers, Benfey’s great uncle and aunt, that led into part two. Josef was a designer and teacher in the Bauhaus school in Germany during the 20s and 30s. Again, that pesky Hitler was involved, shutting down Bauhaus and Josef and his wife took an opportunity that opened up to move to America and lead an experimental college in the NC mountains that was Black Mountain College. It was this part that particularly interested me as I had recently been to the Bechtler Museum in Charlotte to see an exhibition based on his Interaction of Color series. As a docent in an art museum (within a historic house), I have learned to appreciate art. However within modern art, I can make it to impressionism, but struggle thereafter with cubism, abstract, expressionism, etc. Reading about Josef Albers’ teachings at Black Mountain helped me to grasp and appreciate concepts a little bit more. “Objects change according to their surroundings” Benfey explains of Albers’ statement “Nothing can be but one thing but a hundred things.”

Later, Anni’s Red Meander painting is explored. It is linked to the pottery world from the classic meander pattern that often adorns Josiah Wedgwood’s works. Benfey goes into the mythology of the Roman poet Ovid writing of Minos and Pasiphaë and the Minotaur. It made me recall an early book club selection, Circe by Madeline Miller.

Finally the book concludes with the earlier 18th century efforts of explorers to negotiate with the Cherokee nation in acquiring the white clay deposits of kaolin that would allow fine porcelain production by European potters and craftsmen. (Interesting discussion of salt licks and the connection to the medicine Kaopectate). Also since these efforts were often instigated by Quaker entrepreneurs, much early Quaker history came about. I found that like reading Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose, it is instructive that although we regret much of our forebears' aggressive actions against the native population, there was indeed a good deal of negotiation, diplomacy and respect by European explorers as well.

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