My friend Suzanne (who is an incredible pottery artist) and I went to the “Alabama Folk Pottery” exhibit at the Birmingham Museum of Art today. We’ve really been looking forward to it and had all kinds of ideas about what might be included in the show.
The museum doesn’t allow pictures to be taken in their special exhibits, but included were Bowl, Shop of John Alexander Rogers, (1857-1936), Mark: “J.A. Rogers / Oak Level, Ala.” ca. 1890, 6.5×8.25×8.25 inches, Loan from Ron Countryman and Large jug, Attributed to the Joel Falkner shop, Sterrett (Shelby County), ca. 1870, 18 X 11 X 11 inches, Anonymous loan.
I was so happy to see so many examples of older Alabama pottery – the pottery done by John Frederick Lehman, who moved to Alabama from Germany, was *very* interesting.
The exhibit included pieces from the 1800s through mostly the mid-1900s. We saw Jerry Brown pieces, and a piece or two from the Miller family, but I don’t remember seeing much more than those two more contemporary artists. I have pieces by both of those potters, but I think Suzanne and I both were hoping that since it was a folk pottery exhibit, the museum would have found some other family somewhere in Alabama who had been doing this for generations and generations, more or less undiscovered, that was still going. Well, we loved the exhibit anyway! There’s also a book that goes along with the exhibit, written by Joey Brackner, and I ordered it too.
Right next to the pottery exhibit was the “William Christenberry Photographs, 1961-2005” exhibit, and that was excellent, too.