Catawba Potter Builds Traditional Firing Pit on Campus
For Third-Graders' Pinch Pots

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More Photos From the Catawba Pit-Firing

Lower School art teacher Marilyn Wood and Catawba
potter Keith Brown examine a student's finely crafted
pinch pot.

Using clay, river stones, and a wood-stoked fire placed well beyond the athletic fields, art teacher Marilyn Wood helped bring the past alive for her third grade students.

For the second consecutive year, she invited Keith Brown of the Catawba Cultural Preservation Project in Rock Hill to share the traditions and methods of native Catawba pottery-making as part of the third grade inquiry into "Past and Present." (Click here for a story about his visit last year.)

Mr. Brown presented a demonstration of the handbuilding method of pottery-making in the Catawba style and shared photographs of his great-grandparents, whose work is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution. Following his demonstrations, Ms. Wood's classes made their own pottery. "They burnished the surface with a river stone to give it a glossy look, just like the Catawbas," she said.

This year, after the pottery was dry, Mr. Brown returned to campus in October to dig a firing pit in the traditional Catawba method. The pottery was placed carefully into the pit, and a fire of split hardwood logs was tended for the next full day.

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"The students were amazed at the beautiful areas on the pottery which were created by firing in this way," said Ms. Wood, "and how much their pottery resembled the Catawba style after it was cooled and removed from the pit. They enjoyed having Mr. Brown show us how people have created pottery for thousands of years and then participating in the process themselves."

For more photos from the Catawba pit firing, click here.