On Exhibit
‘I Made This Jar...’
“The Life and Works of the Enslaved African American Potter, Dave.”
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren,
Detroit. Through Jan. 2: 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sun. Admission: $5
adults, $3 children. Call
Dave left his mark on pottery, history
Artist’s idea of how Dave the slave potter looked.
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By Joy Hakanson Colby / The Detroit News
DETROIT — “A noble jar for pork or beef/ then cry it is
round to the Indian chief.”
Picture an African-American potter inscribing this rhyme on a clay
container during the first half of the 19th century, when it was illegal
for slaves to read and write.
We know his name was Dave and he created exceptionally large
vessels. He worked in a South Carolina pottery in Edgefield, an area with
rich deposits of high-quality clay.
There are 32 big pots — some with verses — in the exhibit “I
Made This Jar...” The Life and Works of the Enslaved African American
Potter, Dave at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American
History Jan. 2.
His versifying tickles the growing ranks of Dave fans: “Horses,
mules and hogs/ our cows is in the bogs;/ there they shall ever stay,/
till the buzzards takes them away”
During his lifetime, Dave was respected locally. But today, he’s
something of a national phenomenon, with museums and private collectors
vying for his work when they can find it. His prices range from $10,000
for a signed and dated pot to more than $40,000 for one with a verse.
Not bad for pieces that were offered for $1.25 at yard sales years
ago. What’s more, the vessels Dave made sold for 10 cents a gallon during
his lifetime, with a 20-gallon pot bringing only $2. He was producing an
average of 5,000 gallons a year.
The exhibit now at the Wright was organized by Jill Beute Koverman,
curator of educational services at the University of South Carolina’s
McKissick Museum.
“Dave seemed to be very complex,” Koverman says. “He was
intelligent and witty. But we don’t know whether he was married and had a
family or how he learned to read and write. It is
Friday, October
29, 1999
