Customer Reviews

New Ways for Old Jugs: Tradition and Innovation at the Jugtown Pottery

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This book was conceived as the catalog for an exhibition at the McKissick Museum in Columbia, S.C., in 1994. The Catalog of Objects is more like an appendix, however; the creators of this volume did an excellent job of documenting the history of Jugtown in words and pictures. "New Ways For Old Jugs" is a much about the people who created and nurtured the Jugtown phenomenon as it is about the pottery. The book includes writings by founders Jacques and Juliana Busbee and transcribed interviews with Melvin Owens, Charlie Zug, and many others. There are numerous monochrome pictures (the few color photographs are in the Catalog of Objects), giving the book a "historic" look and feel. On the negative side, this volume was produced in a small format, has a small typeface, and is bound in a way that makes it difficult to open fully without damaging the spine. Also, the Catalog of Objects contains very few pictures - - you had to be there. It is hard to overstate the importance of Jugtown Pottery; its establishment in 1921 touched off an explosion of art-pottery production which resonates to this day. There are North Carolina Art Pottery enthusiasts who collect nothing else. New Ways For Old Jugs is a valuable resource for those who appreciate the genre.