Untitled (Jug with Snake)

Burlon Craig spent his early career making utilitarian objects such as churns, pitchers, and jugs. It was not until the 1970s that he began to make more creative items like this snake jug. Craig is celebrated for keeping North Carolina’s Catawba pottery tradition alive. He learned the craft as a boy in the 1920s and spent his life potting with clay that he had dug and ground himself, a foot-powered treadle wheel, and an historic thirties-era “groundhog” kiln. The color of this jug is the result of the ash-alkaline glaze made famous by Catawba Valley potters, like Craig, who could easily find the ash and crushed glass required to make it.