ACC Reads 2013: Favorite Passages Part One

As we make our way through this year’s ACC Reads selection Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay by Christopher Benfey, we wanted to highlight some of our favorite passages from part one of this three part memoir.

Part one focuses on Benfey’s mother and the rural North Carolina setting where she grew up. We learn about her bricklaying heritage and early adulthood tragedy through Benfey’s evocative descriptions of people, objects, and events. Benfey also expounds on the famous pottery at Jugtown and the influence of Chinese and Japanese traditions in the Southern United States, as well as in his own life. It quickly becomes evident that the vessel is a major theme throughout the first third of the book. In honor of Benfey’s highly eloquent and illustrative writing style, please enjoy these selected passages and feel free to contribute your own favorites in the comments area below.

Between brick and bamboo - that was the journey and that was the return. You learned from the soles of your bare feet that these were two different materials, two different principles of strength: the solid red brick and the yielding green bamboo.

...

Halfway down the darkened hallway, opposite the door to my grandparents’ bedroom, was a little wooden table for the old-fashioned telephone, a squat lacquered Buddha in black. Next to the telephone was an earthenware pitcher, dusky orange, with a large handle like an ear swooping down from the rim. To me, the telephone with its oversize receiver and the pitcher with its oversize handle seemed like two potbellied divinities listening to whispered words not meant for children’s ears.

...

I recognized the broad aims of Mingei, the recoil from industrial design and the embrace of handmade irregularities, from my visits to Jugtown. In the pickle jars and sake bottles of Tamba, the mark of the hand was as palpable, as touchable, as in Ben Owen's tobacco-spit pitchers.

...

These monumental pots-glazed in the rich oranges and juicy alkaline browns of traditional Southern folk pottery and studded with bits of partially melted blue glass-were of truly Ali Baba-esque proportions. It was a brisk spring day, and the way the planters and storage jars gathered the dark pines and the cloudless blue sky around them reminded me of Wallace Steven’s poem about the jar on the hill in Tennessee, which makes the “slovenly wilderness” surround it.

...

This pitcher, I realized, was a survivor. I thought of the turning wheel and the turning world, the magic, alchemical transformations of the kiln. And I thought of Ben Owen making handles, thousands and thousands of handles, each handle firmly and gracefully connecting the world of art to the world of use.

A wine and cheese reception with author Christopher Benfey will be held from 6-7pm on Tuesday, February 19, 2013, at the ACC's Baltimore Wholesale Show. Following the reception Benfey will give the keynote address, Why We Care About Craft: A Backward Glance at Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay. To purchase tickets please visit http://christopherbenfeyacc.eventbrite.com/.

Also, don't miss our meeting of the ACC Reads book club, hosted by Celeste Sollod, the Baltimore Bibliophile, on Friday, February 22, 2013, at the American Craft Council Show. In addition to our in-person meet-up, we invite all participants to share their impressions of the book, fun facts, and unique connections to craft by following us on Twitter at @craftcouncil and using the Twitter hashtag #ACCReads. You don't have to be a Twitter user to participate - just check here for the latest Tweets tagged #ACCReads.