Greenville County Museum of Art | leonardtoddconversations

The following is from Buddy Wingard, who, with Mark Albertin, created the award-winning documentary, DISCOVERING DAVE. He first posted it on April 1, 2014, on FaceBook.

When Mark Albertin and I first sat down and discussed attempting a documentary about Dave and the context of his life, one of our goals was to create a vehicle that would generate discussion and maybe help to bring to light new insights of his life and story. On February 20th, I was giving a presentation on Dave to the Lexington County Library, when in walked a couple with a stoneware jar. Mr. Michael Blackwell and Mrs. Suedella Rhoten asked me to look at it and quickly I took note it was a strap handled jar – rare – one handle missing, about three or four gallons, and was signed “Dave.” J.R. Fennell of the Lexington County Historical Museum was also there and we both were duly impressed by this new “discovery”. As the time drew closer for me to start my talk, everyone began to sit down but still chattered excitedly about seeing the vessel. Attention was called and I began my slide show. About half-way through I reach the point where I talk about Dave and the “Silent Period” – roughly 1843 to 1849 when there are no dated or signed pots. Was this because of Dave’s owners at the time (the Landrums ) not wanting him to write on the pots due to their strict beliefs about slaves rights or maybe believing they could also be punished for allowing him to write? I start discussing this point when my brain began to reel – “When was your pot dated?” I blurt out. The couple responds “1845.” In had walked a signed Dave dated during the “Silent Period”, an amazing artifact, and one with new insight into Dave’s life during those six years. At this point of my presentation I become totally discombobulated, thrilled, and a bit overwhelmed! So, with that, a new “Dave” has come forward dated August 16th, 1845 and Mark and I are pretty excited that the film was the springboard for the couple to share their incredible heirloom. The film is doing what we had hoped – helping to further the knowledge of Dave and his story and allowing him to continue speaking to us from across the years.

I was a guest speaker at the 48th annual NCECA Conference, held this year in Milwaukee. The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts is a dynamic and influential organization that celebrates the creative potential of clay. Almost 4,500 of its members were at the conference, nearly all of them potters.

I spoke on Dave, the Edgefield slave potter, who is the subject of my book, CAROLINA CLAY. There was a great deal of interest in the crowd for Dave, his work, and his compelling story. This was, in part, because the conference opened with a tempting mention of him: the charismatic artist and composer, Theaster Gates, began his keynote address by singing about Dave in a deep, gospel-tinged voice—

From the manufactories of South Carolina…

I was born…

With clay in my veins…

There was applause even before he finished. When I spoke with Gates later in the conference, he put his arm around my shoulder and thanked me for keeping the conversation on Dave going. I thanked him, as well.

So many of the potters who were at the four-day gathering stopped me at one time or another to talk about Dave or about Edgefield pottery or about the history of slavery in the South. One of them, David Mack from Tampa, showed me a photograph of a clay sculpture he had made of Dave. This “portrait,” as he called it, was in three pieces—the head, the body, and a fully rounded jar, which lifted out of the body. To my mind, it showed how much of himself Dave put into his work. It reminded me of a couplet that he incised on one of his pots in 1834—

oh the moon + the stars

hard work to make big Jars.

Like David Mack, the other ceramic artists I met at the conference were warm and imaginative. They were also enormously talented. This was evident from the potting demonstrations they gave and from the exhibits of their work—varied and beautiful ceramic pieces that I found quite moving. There were works on display by students and by long acknowledged masters. Some of the most breathtaking are shown below.

The executive director of NCECA, Joshua Green, captured my reaction to these pieces with a quote from the writings of the novelist, Donna Tartt: And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty? Those first images that crack your heart wide open and you spend the rest of your life chasing, or trying to recapture, in one way or another?