In the latter half of my Sophomore year of High school, my teacher requested we design a pottery jug in the Catawba River Valley style. The customary style is relatively local to our community and is often demonstrated in the form of pottery jugs with wildly expressive faces attached. Personally, I’m not particularly fond of the style so I chose to just have some fun with the piece and do something I felt like I hadn’t seen before. The long hair and slumped expression on my jug ended up reminding me of a character on a TV show entitled mountain men; the character actually lived regionally to me, in the Appalachian Mountain range.

My High school art teacher gave us the task to create a candle holder for decorative purposes using a method of slab, score, and slip. I created the piece above with my sister in mind because at the time she was moving into a mountain home. I gifted the piece to her for Christmas.

As an elementary introduction to pottery, my High school art teacher tasked us to create a working coffee mug. Above is my perfectly imperfect coffee cup made by use of slab, score, and slip method.