Backcountry Notes

There is a small but dedicated faction of collectors and aficionados which considers Philmore Graves to be among the best turners in the renowned group of masters of the North Carolina art pottery genre.  I count myself among the Phil Graves fans, but perhaps I am biased, as I will explain.

In long-ago years of childhood and youth, my siblings and I spent much of each summer on our grandparents' farm in Whynot, N.C.  Our grandfather J. B. Slack, Jr. was born and raised in Whynot and included among his kith and kin were Walter Auman, a something-removed cousin, Dorothy Auman, and the J. B. Cole potters Phil Graves, Nell Graves, and Waymon Cole, whom he had known from childhood.  At this remove, it seems odd to recall that we simply thought of these folks as family friends and kinfolk who happened to be potters; the renaissance of Seagrove Pottery had not then begun.

At the cusp of my twelfth year, my parents had given me a long-nagged-for fly rod for Christmas, and so I spent much of the summer of 1961 terrorizing the bass and bream in the Slack farm pond with flies and popping bugs.  In those years, a vernal pool formed beside the creek at the head of the pond during times of high water; fish would move into the pool to graze on the worms and grubs that were flushed out of the soil by the standing water and some of those fish were trapped when the creek went back to normal flow.

I made it my job to rescue the fish in that vernal pool and was whipping the water with poorly cast fly line one morning when I saw Nell Graves' station wagon cross the dam and drive toward my grandparents' cottage.  A few minutes later, the tall, rawboned form of Phil Graves came out of the woods and crossed the creek to where I was located.  “Fly rod, I see,” he said.  “Mind if I take a look at it?”  I didn't, and he false-cast a few times and pronounced, “not bad.”

“Now,” he said, “can you cast your fly under that hanging branch across the pool and land it about four inches from the bank?”  Said branch being only about six inches above the water, I admitted that I could not.  Phil false cast a couple of more times and then laid the fly in the exact spot he had indicated.  “Well, this is a fly rod, not a buggy whip, and if something's worth doing, it's worth doing right,” he said, and proceeded to instruct me on the proper use of a fly rod.  In the next 45 minutes, I learned 90 per cent of what I would ever learn about fly-casting.

Slack Farm Pond, mid-1960s; click on image for larger viewAfter we had moved all of the willing fish from the vernal pool to the lake, we walked back to the cottage.  On the way, Phil said, “Nell and I have some land down in the Sandhills with a blackwater pond; if you'd like to go with us, we're going down on Saturday to picnic and fish a bit.”  I accepted, of course, and thus it came to be that I accompanied Nell and Phil Graves to the blackwater pond - - I had no idea what that meant, by the way - - on Saturday, bouncing down a dirt road in Phil's pickup with a john boat tied on top and gear in the back.  

It turned out that Phil was every bit as accomplished a fly-fisherman as I had suspected from the day at the vernal pool; he fished a fine cane rod with the ease and accuracy that comes with years of experience.  I did the best I could with my fiberglass Heddon “Pal” while Nell wore a red-and-white bandana - - no fishing hat - - and used a cane pole, with which she easily caught more fish than I did.  It was one of those days when I had the impression that I was put on earth for Nell Graves' amusement, which I prompted with such antics as wrapping my leader around a tree limb and striking my first fish so hard that it flew into the boat.  But Phil was a patient and determined man, and he advised me gently from time to time of the flaws in my technique, so that as the day went on I was casting passably well.

I realized at the time that Phil Graves had no overwhelming desire to buddy up with an adolescent; he simply couldn't bear to leave a job half done and knew that I would need practice.  And saw to it that I got the practice.  With the ability to properly false-cast and knowing the double-haul, I could now cast big, deer-hair bass bugs with both distance and accuracy.  I spent many happy afternoons catching bass and bream.  Later, I learned about trout fishing, and the ability to cast with accuracy became even more important. 

Fishing was not Phil's only outdoor pastime.  He was a chef with, of course, the reputation of making the best snapping-turtle soup in the Piedmont, which meant that he needed to catch snapping turtles.  Early in August of 1962, I had gone with my grandfather to the J. B. Cole pottery shop.  While “Pop” Slack talked farm business with Phil, I watched Waymon Cole make "Aladdin's Lamp" teapots - - but that's another story.   Once business had been attended, Phil suggested that it was time to catch some turtles; so the next day the three of us set out to visit a couple of nearby farm ponds where he had turtle-catching privileges.

As with so many things, Phil had mastered the art of turtling.  The gear consisted of lengths of clothesline and extremely large salt-water hooks - - “shark hooks,” he called them.  The hookless end of the line was tied around an alder bush and the hooked end, baited with a piece of hotdog, went into the water.  “Those big hooks let the little turtles nibble off the hotdog without getting hooked,” he explained.  “We don't want the little ones.”  What did he consider to be big enough? “Oh, twenty pounds and up,” he said.  Hmm.  The biggest snapper I had seen up to that point at close range was a five-pounder which had tangled in my fishing line one day.  We set three rigs in each of the two ponds and headed back home until evening.

After dark, we returned to the first pond and used flashlights to locate the nearest rig.  The line was slack and the hook had been cleaned of hotdog.  “Little one got it,” Phil said.  As we approached the second rig we could hear the alder bush rustling.  The line was taut as a guitar string.  Phil handed me a pair of work gloves and pulled on a pair himself.  While Phil held the line with both hands, my grandfather cut it free from the bush with his pocket knife.  Phil wrapped the line quickly around his right hand, braced his feet, and had a tug-of-war which the snapping turtle eventually lost.  What came out of the water was an awesome behemoth of a snapper; forty-pounder, Phil said.  I grabbed the tail, as instructed, while Phil controlled the head of the beast, and we lugged it to the back of the pickup.

At the next bush, it was my turn to play tug-of-war.  Fortunately, that snapper was a mere 25-pounder, so I didn't cramp up too bad.  Moving to the second pond, we again took turns and pulled out two more turtles, both around 30 pounds.  I'll say one thing for turtle-hunting - - you'll find out quick whether you're in good physical condition.  As we headed home in Phil's pickup, turtles scraping around in the back, I listened drowsily while the men discussed baseball.  They laughed at the recollection of a baseball game played decades before, a hard-fought tie which lasted deep into the gloaming, ending only when a well-hit ball bounced into a hog pen which the outfielder refused to breach.  For a youngster who enjoyed nothing as much as fishing and baseball and monster snapping turtles, this was great stuff.

As I said, I may be biased.

Phil Graves at his potter's wheel was as much a perfectionist as he was in other aspects of his life.  His kit was simple - - a small sponge, a pan of water, a rib, and a wire.  Water was used sparingly; the J. B. Cole potters' clay was very plastic and slick as they prepared it, and too much water would make it sticky.  Once a sufficient number of balls of clay was prepared, Phil set to turning at a pace that few could match.  He stood at the wheel, of course, and deftly centered each ball of clay.  The centering was the slow part.  To my young eyes, it seemed as if Phil was pulling ready-made clay cylinders from a hole in the middle of the wheel.  The process of shaping was completed, then finishing touches were made to the rim and base and the piece was wired off and set aside to dry.  Vase after vase was pulled magically from the wheel, each one seemingly identical to the one before and the one after.  When a shape called for handles, Phil made them quickly by hand and attached them, again, so that each piece appeared to be identical to the others.

Many biographies of North Carolina potters begin like the Gospel of Matthew, with a lengthy recitation of the potter's genealogy, and there are those who believe that good potters are born with their abilities.  Phil Graves reveals the truth of the matter - - he did not come from a family of potters, but had learned the craft as an adult, achieving mastery by applying himself and seeking to produce wares as perfect as he could make them.  Certainly, there is a great advantage to growing up in a potter's household, as Waymon Cole and Nell Graves had; but there are potter's children who couldn't turn a dog dish if their lives depended on it, and the work of Phil Graves proves that it is practice, application, and the desire the achieve that make a master turner.

Phil Graves was only 65 years of age when his heart gave out.  Sadly, he had no way to know that examples of his pottery would be in museums and prized private collections.  Yet we have the fond memory of a kind and patient gentleman who was a good friend, a good neighbor, and an accomplished fly-caster who took the time to teach a youngster how to properly cast a fly. And we have a body of work which includes some of the finest examples of North Carolina art pottery made.

POTTERY BY PHIL GRAVES

Note: Click on any image below for a larger view

IMAGE 1 -- This pair of vases was made by Phil Graves in the 1930s. They are glazed in rose and white.

There is not a single piece of pottery known to have been signed or marked by Phil Graves, yet his work can very often be identified with reasonable certainty. In addition to some reliable attributions which can be used for comparison, there are two sources of information to assist in the identification process. First, there are the characteristics of the pots themselves, particularly those made with handles.  IMAGE 2 -- A page from the 1940 J. B. Cole's Pottery Catalogue depicting forms made by Phil Graves.Second, there is the 1940 J. B. Cole's Pottery Catalogue, a priceless resource which contains monochrome photographs of more than 500 pieces of pottery.

Finding a piece illustrated in the 1940 Catalogue is always helpful and provides at least a starting point.  This publication is particularly useful because the pottery is coded to indicate the maker and size of each piece – the serial number is preceded by a letter (“G” for Graves, for instance) and is followed by a measurement in inches.  Thus the code G 283-7" indicates that the form is made by Phil Graves and has a finished height of about 7 inches. See IMAGE 2, which shows examples of a dozen forms, or "shapes" as many North Carolina potters called them, made by Phil Graves identified and by their code numbers.

IMAGE 3 -- Vase by Phil Graves, 1930s vintageThe 1940 J. B. Cole's Pottery Catalogue does not depict every form and size made by the J. B. Cole potters.  Some forms made in the 1920s evidently had been discontinued; a few forms from the 1930s were omitted; and others developed after World War II of course were not pictured.  The 1940 J. B. Cole's Pottery Catalogue alone cannot be used to date pieces, since a great many of the same forms were made in later years.  Dating a given piece requires consideration of the clay, the glaze, and production characteristics such as embedded stilt points and belt-sander marks (neither of which occur on pieces made of Michfield clay).

IMAGE 4 -- Flower basket, ivory glaze, 1930sBecause Phil Graves learned to make pottery as an adult, there is a progression in the quality of his work over time.  The earliest pieces are good -- he did have a gifted mentor, after all, in Jace Cole -- but his drive to always do the best job he could shows up in improved pottery as time goes on.  If practice makes perfect, the high-production environment at the J. B. Cole shop provided an ideal environment for Phil Graves. By the late 1930s, he was as skilled as the other potters working at J. B. Cole’s Pottery.

IMAGE 5 -- Two yellow-glazed vases

The two yellow-glazed vases shown in Image 5 demonstrate the progression in Phil Graves’ skill as a turner.  The vase on the left, form G 284, is stamped “Sunset Mountain Pottery” and therefore can be reliably dated to the early 1930s.  The vase on the right, form G 350, is glazed in the deeper yellow normally associated with pieces made in the late 1930s.  Both are made with light Michfield clay.  The thinner walls of the later vase are readily apparent.

IMAGE 6 -- Pair of white-glazed vases, form G 395, 1930sThe remarkable consistency of Phil Graves’ turning can be seen in the two vases illustrated in IMAGE 6. This style of vase, form G 395-8", appears to have been very popular in the 1930s and numerous examples have survived.  The vases shown here, presumably kiln-mates, are virtually identical in all respects, as are the two examples of the same form depicted in IMAGE 1, above.  The differences in finished weights of these vases is less than one-half of one per cent, a difference within the tolerance permitted by manufacturers of machine-made ceramics. Phil Graves' skill at the wheel approached the near-perfection seen in the work of A. R. Cole and Dorothy Auman.

J. B. Cole pottery was well-made but the success of the business depended on both quality and quantity.  The potters were capable of turning out duplicates of IMAGE 7 -- 1940 Catalogue, page 38the same form at a rate of dozens and scores per hour, depending on the size and complexity of the form.  To "have a shape" meant developing the ability to make the same form repeatedly and accurately many times. In order to produce such numbers the potters developed habitual ways of turning, altering, and handling the forms they made, to the point where pieces were made by second nature, with little or no conscious thought given to the process. These production habits reveal the “hand” of the potter – the marks left from the turning of the piece, the way in which a spout is formed on a pitcher, the methods of forming and attaching handles, and so on.

IMAGE 8 -- Flower basket, green and white glaze, 1930sEven when two potters turn a similar form, very often the manner of handle formation and attachment provides a signature.  Phil Graves developed characteristic ways of making and attaching certain types of handles which were distinct from the other potters and provide a way to confirm that he made a particular piece. Pots which are altered after they are thrown (ruffled-edge vases, pitchers with pouring spouts) provide another source of characteristic methods.

Other factors to be considered are the clay and the glaze of the pottery.  Until 1938, J. B. Cole’s Pottery used light-colored Michfield clay obtained IMAGE 9 -- Vase with brown sugar glaze, 1960sfrom a deposit near Seagrove in Randolph County.  The primary Michfield clay bed was sold in 1938 to the Pomona Terra Cotta Manufacturing Company in Greensboro and sufficient quantities were no longer available.  Thereafter, J. B. Cole’s Pottery obtained its clay from a red-clay deposit near Smithfield, North Carolina.  This was the same clay used by A. R. Cole and was capable of being fired to terra-cotta temperatures, where it produced a dense, vitrified clay body. The fired color of this clay ranged from orange-red to brown.

IMAGE 10 -- Squash-blossom vase, 1950sThe loss of the Michfield clay turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Michfield was a stoneware clay which was used for earthenware art pottery because of its light color, which helped produce clear, bright glaze results. The loss of the Michfield deposit was upsetting to the potteries which used it but Michfield was actually a poor clay for wheel-turned pottery, being “short” and difficult to work with.  Potters often mixed some orange earthenware clay with Michfield batches to make it easier to use. The Smithfield red clay, on the other hand, was superior in all respects for wheel-turned work. Smithfield red clay was very plastic – that is, easy to form – but at the same time firm enough to resist sagging even when thrown very thinly and in radical shapes.

IMAGE 11 -- Four pitchers by Phil Graves. The two in front are made with Michfield clay and date to the 1930s; the two in back are made with Smithfield red clay, 1940s.IMAGE 12 -- Bronze-green vaseThe change from Michfield clay to Smithfield clay resulted in better pottery, not only for Phil Graves but for the other potters as well.  Nell Graves turned very thin-walled pieces with Michfield clay but her work expressed in Smithfield red clay was even finer, although it may take a micrometer to measure the difference, and allowed improvements in certain pieces, such as wider, thin-walled bowls for her "chamberstick" candle-holders. Waymon Cole developed the radically-shaped "Aladdin’s Lamp" teapot, a difficult form which he could make in production quantities with Smithfield clay.

IMAGE 13 -- Two vases, form G 284

The difference in the two clays is demonstrated by IMAGE 13 and IMAGE 14.  The two vases shown in IMAGE 13 are the same form, the one on the left from the early 1930s and the one on the right from the 1960s.  The 1930s example is made with walls not less than 3/8 inch thick (as glazed and fired) while the 1960s example of the same form is made with walls not more than 1/4 inch thick.  The difference in finished weight of the two pieces is 1222 grams and 1006 grams, respectively, a reduction in weight of about 17.7 per cent. 

IMAGE 14 -- Two vases in form G 359The two vases shown in IMAGE 14 are the same form, the one on the left from the 1930s, glazed in green and white, and the one on the right from the 1950s, glazed in turquoise. Again, the wall thickness of the older, Michfield-clay example is about 3/8 inch, and of the Smithfield-clay piece, about 1/4 inch.  The finished weights are 1918 grams and 1584 grams, a reduction of about 17.4 per cent, very close to the results seen in the vases illustrated in IMAGE 13.

From the 1920s through the early 1970s, J. B. Cole’s Pottery (called J. B. Cole Pottery after WWII) used fritted, lead-fluxed glazes almost exclusively.  Glazes were mixed in large batches – Jace Cole had recycled a number of claw-footed, cast-iron bathtubs to hold glazes – and the more popular colors appear on a large number of surviving pieces.  The glaze results on authenticated pieces are helpful in confirming the source of other pieces which have the same glaze.

IMAGE 15 -- Two ruffled vases, 1930s vintageSome of the glaze batches have unique characteristics which distinguish them from similar glazes used by other potteries. Light blue and blue-green glazes often show a marked speckling of the glaze colorant. The light-blue vase depicted in IMAGE 15, above, has speckles of colorant distributed throughout the glaze; because this vase bears the "Sunset Mountain Pottery" stamp, it can be authenticated as a J. B. Cole's Pottery product from the early 1930s and this glaze when found on un-marked pieces helps to verify their source.

In the 1930s, several J B. Cole glaze colors were over-dipped with a white glaze, IMAGE 16 -- Shadow light, 1960sincluding blue and white, orange (chrome red) and white, green and white, and rose and white. This method of glazing was used by several potteries but the results tend to be distinguishable. At some point the J. B. Cole white glaze became contaminated with flecks of blue, presumably from over-dipping dark-blue-glazed pieces, and these flecks show up on some color-and-white combinations.  This blue flecking is illustrated in J. B. Cole Rose and White Art Pottery Glaze.  The large ruffled-rim cabinet vase in IMAGE 15 is glazed in green overdipped in white and it has the blue flecking, eliminating any doubt as to its provenance.

While finding a piece with an impressed stamp, such as “Sunset Mountain Pottery” or “Goose Creek,” can be helpful in identifying its origin, other stamps can pose problems because J. B. Cole’s Pottery produced impressed-stamped pottery for other Cole family potteries, including A. R. Cole’s Rainbow Pottery.  IMAGE 17 -- Vase, form G 305, stamped "Rainbow Pottery, Sanford, N.C." (see inset)The pieces made by Rainbow Pottery in Sanford, N.C., are typically stamped with a round, India-ink stamp, but there are a few surviving examples having an impressed stamp which reads “Rainbow Pottery/Sanford, NC.” Examples of the round, India-ink stamp are shown in James, North Carolina Art Pottery, on pages 77 and 167-168, and in Lock, Traditional Potters, on pages 50, 133, and 196.  On page 77 of North Carolina Art Pottery there is an example of the impressed stamp, which James calls a “rare stamp.” IMAGE 17 shows a piece with the same impressed stamp; it is a form G 305 and was made by Phil Graves at J. B. Cole’s Pottery. See, for comparison, the form G 305 depicted in J. B. Cole Rose and White Art Pottery Glaze.

IMAGE 18 -- Two views of wine pitcher, bronze-green glaze, 1960s vintage North Carolina Pottery – The Collection of the Mint Museums pictures on page 51 a form G 395 vase which evidently is mis-identified because of an impressed stamp.  This vase is attributed to Everette Cole and IMAGE 19 -- Pedestal vaseis described as having an impressed stamp reading “Carolina Craft/American/Hand Made.” However, the form of the vase and the glaze are consistent with pottery produced by J. B. Cole’s Pottery but not with other identified Carolina Craft pieces.  Evidently, there were two Carolina Craft stamps, one reading “Carolina Craft/Hand Made,” the other adding the word “American.” Some or all of the pieces stamped “Carolina Craft/American/Hand Made” appear to have been made by J. B. Cole’s Pottery. The weight of the evidence at this writing is that the vase pictured on page 51 of North Carolina Pottery – The Collection of the Mint Museums was made by Phil Graves.

IMAGE 20 -- Vase with "ribbon" handles, form G 381, 1930s vintage

The proper identification of vintage pottery can be a challenge -- but this is also part of the charm of studying and collecting North Carolina art pottery. There is a definite satisfaction gained from learning the clay and glazes of a pottery and the "hand" of a potter well enough to ferret out vintage pieces. Unfortunately, the work of some of the potters of that era, including Phil Graves, has not been subjected to thorough study. I may be partial, but I believe that Phil’s work is worthy of recognition in its own right.

IMAGE 21 -- Two vases with torquoise glazes, 1950s vintage

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Text and photographs copyright 2008, 2009, 2010 by J. R. Henderson.