Classic North Carolina stoneware pots--with their rich textures, monochromatic glazes, and minimal decoration--belong to one of America's most revered stoneware pottery traditions. In a lavishly illustrated celebration of that tradition, Mark Hewitt and Nancy Sweezy trace the history of North Carolina pottery from the nineteenth century to the present day. They demonstrate the intriguing historic and aesthetic relationships that link pots produced in North Carolina to pottery traditions in Europe and Asia, in New England, and in the neighboring state of South Carolina.

With hundreds...

Raised in Clay is a remarkable portrait of pottery making in the South, one of the oldest and richest craft traditions in America. Focusing on more than thirty potters in North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, and Kentucky, Nancy Sweezy tells how families preserve and practice the traditional art of pottery making today.

First published in 1984, Sweezy's book documents the last generation of potters to have direct contact with preindustrial pottery traditions. It portrays the personalities of the potters, treating this aspect as carefully as the traditions...