He’s honoring Black history with ceramics as the platform

JIM MCDOWELL

Potter Jim McDowell of Weaverville, N.C., poses with a face jug, an art form with roots in Africa.

Jim McDowell shows art through an ancestral lens.

A “ceramic activist” who lives in Weaverville, N.C., 9 miles north of Asheville, McDowell pays homage to people who came before and paves the way for those who come after. He is best known for creating face jugs, an art form with African roots and exported to the West. The jugs hold spiritual and cultural meanings tied to death, warding off evil spirits and bringing protection. 

“The white folks that started doing face jugs, their emphasis … was Toby jugs,” McDowell said. “The Toby jugs come from England, where they satirized the rich people with big boogers on the nose and warts and gout and all that kind of stuff. I said, ‘You know what? Face jugs are Black, so I'm making mine with Black features, big noses and ropey lips and stringy hair and scarification and things. So, when I started doing it, I started thinking about the connections, Africa ancestor worship.” 

McDowell, 79, is among the nation’s foremost potters. His pieces are on display at the Smithsonian Museum of African American Art and Culture and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Some of his jugs have sold for “five to six figures,” he said.

McDowell’s face jugs reflect Black people throughout history and their stories. From honoring church ladies who kept families fed and nurtured to Trayvon Martin, whose death sparked the Black Lives Matter movement, Creating speaks to his anger and appreciation through art. 

“If I make the jug, guess what? It’ll speak for me when I'm not there,” he said. “I don't have to say a word, you know?”

Becoming a ceramist came early for McDowell – as a fifth grader. 

“They bought us a softball sized piece of clay and showed us a little bit and let everybody make something where everybody was making snakes and stupid stuff, and I was carving a bird on a rock,” he said. “Everybody said, ‘Oh, that dude is crazy.’ And she stopped me before everybody left. She said, ‘I’m telling all the teachers that you're an artist,’ and that was the start of it. I always liked the malleability of clay, so clay kind of chose me, and I never got away from it.” 

McDowell's passion for pottery sparked in spent in Germany while he was in the Army. What kickstarted the journey was McDowell wanting to learn how to use a kick wheel in a town where no one spoke English, and he didn’t German. 

“Somebody came out the back room with a broom and I said, ‘oh gosh, they're prejudiced,’ but I heard my father say, ‘you want to learn it, you'll do what they need.’ 

“So, I swept the studio for three Saturdays in a row, and then after that, they started teaching me. But what was really unique was the language barrier was not a deterrent, because they showed me and I showed them,” McDowell said.

Fatherly advice and an ability to bond with people led to McDowell learning pottery basics that launched his career. 

“I remember one day I said, ‘Let me treat these guys.’ I didn't know what they liked, so I bought three cartons of cigarettes and two bottles of Jim Beam,” he said. “And when I took that in there, you thought I would be the second coming of Jesus Christ. They just went crazy. So that was the start. “Then they started teaching me more detailed things, how to fire the kiln, how to process the clay, how to make things, and also marketing, because they were in a tourist area. … I was there for about a couple years.”

McDowell returned home to Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to learn the creative side of the art, he took an eight-week course and eventually went to learn from David Robinson in a workshop.

“I went there for one week, and he taught me so much, I ended up staying two, and 40 years later, the stuff that David Robinson taught me I'm still using,” he said.
With the legacy McDowell has created, his pottery extends beyond himself. 

“We lost everything when slavery ended. I have reclaimed it,” he said. “It's a biblical principle to whom much is given, much is required.” 

McDowell’s mission is to continue creating and paying forward his knowledge through teaching others the joy in clay.

“The one thing I think I had going for myself is I never stopped,” he said. “I never stopped doing pottery. There were days when I maybe didn't have enough food or didn't have money or whatever but always went back to the wheel.” 

McDowell's art speaks truth to how Black Americans have contributed to society, fighting erasure of history while acknowledging the resilience of Black people. 

“I try to tell the stories of who we are and where we came from, and that's, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it too. I ain't changing.” 

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