When someone says Jim McDowell's pottery is ugly, McDowell says "thank
you."
"That's my intention. They have to be ugly," McDowell says about
the pieces he calls "face jugs."
For more than 15 years, the Johnstown coal miner-turned-artist has been
making pottery jugs that sport ugly mugs as a kind of homage to black history
and his own family heritage.
According to his family's history, McDowell says, one of his ancestors, a
great-great-great-aunt named Evangeline, was a slave potter in Jamaica.
During her time, the practice of voodoo was common and potters
often would make ugly looking face jugs to place at the gravesites of loved
ones.
"The premise was that if it was ugly enough, it would scare the devil
away from your grave," McDowell says.
The jugs were left at each grave for a year and then smashed to release the
soul to go to heaven.
Now at the Clay Place in Shadyside, nearly 30 of McDowell's face jugs,
along with a few birdhouses and other vessels, are on display in his solo
show, "Face Jugs and Friends," and they are so captivating that one
wouldn't dare think of smashing them.
"The intention is to make them ugly, but in the ugly there's some
beauty," McDowell says.
And he's right. With glossy brown, blue and greenish glazes that accentuate
features such as extended noses and bugged-out eyes, not to mention broken
pieces of plates for teeth, these ugly jugs are anything but ugly.
And there's more. Some have horns resembling the devil. Some have ears,
which McDowell says are for listening for the devil's approach. And many have
gouges on the cheeks or pockmarks, which McDowell says alludes to some African
tribal practices in which the face is intentionally scarred to denote status
and is considered a sign of beauty.
All of the jugs are signed with a fish symbol that is McDowell's personal
mark and alludes to his Baptist faith. But even more curious, all of the jugs
have short sayings that McDowell has carved onto the backs of each.
"On the left-hand side, I usually put an anti-slavery sentiment and
the other side something relevant to today," McDowell says.
For example, on one it reads, "Follow the North Star" on the left
and "9-11, Don't Forget" on the right.
Adding sayings to the works, McDowell says, is a tribute to "Slave
Potter Dave," a slave owned by people who once ran a newspaper. Although
it was illegal at the time to teach slaves to read and write, Dave was taught
to do so in order to set type for the newspaper.
Dave also made pots, and secretly he would carve sayings into each. Hence,
on some of McDowell's jugs, sayings such as "I can read and write"
and "Freedom for all slaves" can be found.
As intriguing as the face jugs are and as much as they are McDowell's main
output, he also makes other pots and vessel forms. In the gallery several
vases, urns and birdhouses are on display. And even though their smooth
surfaces and added decorative flourishes seem stark in contrast to McDowell's
"ugly" jugs, they are every bit as engaging. Particularly the
birdhouses, which are hung from the ceiling as though already hanging from
trees.
Small and gourd shaped, they each feature a small, round opening, which
McDowell says is specifically designed for sparrows. They, too, have
earth-toned glazes similar to the wood fired face jugs.
"I like earthy things," McDowell says about his color choices in
glazing, which also would account for the artist's decision to include a few
pieces of wood among his display of vessels.
Unusually beautiful, they include a piece of cedar McDowell's father pulled
from a creek in South Carolina and a dark, gnarled piece of walnut McDowell
once found in a woodlot. "I'm a wood nut," McDowell says. "I
just go around collecting wood."
Although they might seem out of place, they actually fit in quite nicely,
and apparently visitors to the gallery agree. "I had several people at
the opening wanting to buy the wood," McDowell says.
But even so, it's the face jugs that are the real showstoppers. And even
though they are supposed to be ugly, there isn't an ugly one among them.
Kurt Shaw can be reached at kshaw@tribweb.com.
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