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The Black Potter + an Ugly Jug Named Slave
Resource ID: 18851
Type: podcast episode, audio
share:
- UPDATED: 6.17.2025
- status: complete
- inherited trauma, art, ancestor work, slavery, culture
- colonial America, pottery, ancestors, face jugs, voodoo, outsider artist
date:
6.16.2022
length:
1 hr 55 min
podcast:
creator:
Philippe Willis
guest:
Jim McDowell
notes:
. . .
description:
Jim McDowell, aka "The Black Potter," is a gallery-level, outsider artist in Weaverville, North Carolina working in the ceramic tradition of face jugs inspired by his enslaved African ancestors. In this passionate & electric episode we learn about what pottery was like in colonial & slave times: the spiritual side of African & voodoo pottery; utilitarian vessels on the plantation; digging clay & building kilns; face jugs [aka ugly jugs]; & a renowned, literate slave potter named David Drake. Jim then tells a horripilating story about the making of an emotionally torturous jug he titled, "Slave." This opens powerful conversations about getting one's demons out & the artist's role, channeling ancestors & building generational wealth.
peoples: