ACC Reads 2013: Favorite Passages Part Three

Well, folks, we've reached the end of our journey through Christopher Benfey's Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay. The especially adventuresome third section of the book takes the reader on a hunt for silky white "Cherokee clay" in western North Carolina. Along the way we learn about soulful slave potter Dave Drake, the birth of the influential Wedgwood studio, and the role Benfey's ancestor, the great explorer William Bartram, played in the documentation of Southern folk culture.

Here are some of our favorite passages from the final pages of Benfey's memoir:    

As I assembled the fragments of the story, I found that the search for Cherokee clay was much richer, braided with more strands, than I had originally imagined. I had pictured a single traveler, but I soon discovered that there had been three successive journeys to the Cherokee towns by three different travelers. One of these journeys involved a distant relative of mine, the Quaker explorer, naturalist, and artist William Bartram. Bartram's account of his own travels inspired, in turn, several key details in Coleridge's opium dream of a poem, "Kubla Khan." Actually, there was a fourth traveler in the mix, because I myself, another third son, was determined to find and see with my own eyes the source of the snow-white clay. 

...

Dave Drake was a brilliant potter. But he was also a poet. His storage jars are of a virtuoso grandeur that still fills potters with awe. His most visionary stroke, however, was to combine his two skills in a manner unprecedented for slaves or, for that matter, for anyone in American pottery. Dave inscribed his poems, generally consisting of a single rhymed couplet, directly onto the shoulders of his great jars…. It is though Dave is giving the pots voice, speaking through their mouths and lips, as in [..] this pot made at the height of the Civil War: 

I made this Jar all of cross
If you don't repent, you will be lost

...

William Bartram was brought up in the Enlightenment world of clarity, fixed hierarchy, industry, and order. Almost from the start, however, he fit uneasily into this grid. Compared to his father's friends, with their orderly ambitions and systematic undertakings, young William Bartram was waywardness embodied. His world was a world of accident. He made a lifelong practice of wandering from the beaten path; his best discoveries always came after slips and falls of various kinds. His accidents were lucky and his falls fortunate; serendipity could have been his motto.

...

Exotic plants like ginseng and porcelain clays for making china were dug from the rich earth of North America and transported to England, where they thrived in new surroundings and inspired new artistic creation. Similarly, Bartram's Travels served as a rich repository of metaphors for later writers, "transplanted" to new literary uses. Just as there was a global trade in plants and materials, there was a parallel trade in verbal structures and ideas. And every once in a while, a restless genius came along - a Bartram, a Wedgwood, a Coleridge - who wandered from the familiar trail, risking falls and failure, and fused these new possibilities in unexpected ways, leaving lasting art for posterity. 

...

I can see, now, that some such divination has been my purpose in this book all along. My pen has been my metal detector, and I have been digging, as patiently as I can, for evidence of my family's passages, in art and in love, as they pursued their own lives across many generations, living and surviving. A snuffbox, a stamp album, a rust-colored pitcher, a handful of white clay - these things carry their stories with them.

Want to hear more from Christopher Benfey, the award-winning writer and contributor to the New York Times Book Review, the New Republic and the New York Review of Books? Then join us for a wine and cheese reception with the author from 6-7 p.m. next 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." Click here to purchase tickets to Benfey's address.

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.