Burlon "B.B." Craig Biography

This entry was taken directly from the Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century American FOLK ART and ARTISTS, by Chuck and Jan Rosenak. (Abbeville Press, NYC, 1990).

Burlon ("B.B.") Craig--"I don't make any specific people because some might not like seeing themselves that way."

BIOGRAPHICAL DATA

Born April 21, 1914, Hickory (near Winston Salem), North Carolina, died July 2002, Vale, North Carolina. Attended school through eighth grade, Hickory, North Carolina. Married Irene Lindsay, September 22, 1934. Three sons, two daughters (“they don’t help in the pottery—always find somethin’ else they gotta do”). Now resides Vale (southeast of Winston Salem), North Caronlina.

GENERAL BACKGROUND

“I started pottery making ‘long about 1929, helping gather clay,” Burlon Craig remembers. At the same time that he was serving his apprenticeship to James Lyn, a local potter, Craig was also working for the Hickory Furniture Company (for nineteen years).

Craig was drafted into the navy in 1942 and served as a gunner on a troop ship in the South Pacific. After the war, with the help of the GI bill and money saved from his wife’s defense plant earnings, Craig bought a farm and pottery near Vale, North Carolina. “I made churns, storage jars, and milk crocks,” he explains. “That was about all you could sell in those days. People didn’t have the money to collect pottery, like they have today.”

In 1986 Craig had a heart attack that slowed him down somewhat, but the night sky around Vale is still often lit up by one of his firings.

ARTISTIC Background

Although Craig learned his craft as a youngster in the 1920’s, his art did not develop until the late 1970’s, when there was a resurgence of interest in hand-crafted pottery. As an experiment, Craig started making nonutilitarian sculpture in the form of face jugs, which quickly gained an enthusiastic audience.

SUBJECTS AND SOURCES

The artist still makes utilitarian pottery—the storage jars, milk crocks, and churns that are always useful and in demand—but he is best known for his large and unusual green, blue, and brown face vessels. These have exaggerated and fanciful faces, often with protruding white teeth.

MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES

Craig gathers his clay locally, then purifies and mixes it in a pug mill of his own design that is powered by a tractor motor. He throws the jugs on a foot-powered “kick” wheel and finishes them with an ash glaze made of a mixture of ground glass, clay, wood ash, and water. “I dip ‘em in a drum of glaze, let some run inside, and give ‘em a roll,” he says. Porcelain is used to make the teeth on his face vessels.

Craig’s kiln is a long, narrow building with a firebox at one end. It is fueled by pine slabs that he purchases from a local lumber mill.

Craig has made many hundreds of face jugs since he turned to this mode of expression. They range anywhere from tiny—only 1 1\2 inches high—to his famous large jugs that are 3 feet tall.

ARTISTIC RECOGNITION

Craig’s best-known and most-admired works are his large face vessels; his miniatures are rare. His earliest pieces are signed “Burlon Craig Vale N.C.”; the later ones, “B.B. Craig Vale N.C.” The earlier work is preferred.

***When Vale, North Carolina potter Burlon B. Craig died in July 2002 at the age of 88, it was truly the end of an era. Widely viewed as one of America's best traditional folk potters, Craig was among the last of the North Carolina potters to work in alkaline glaze. He took no shortcuts in his pottery production: from the start, in which he dug clay by hand from the banks of the South Fork of the Catawba River, to turning the clay on a foot-powered wheel, he took pride in his traditional methods. He was adept at making swirl ware, and he created a deep blue glaze from natural substances found in the Catawba Valley clay. He worked hard to mentor other potters in his methods. Many attribute the thriving pottery scene in Catawba Valley to his influence.

Craig was widely recognized during his life for his amazing talent. His works can be found in the Smithsonian's permanent collections, and he received the prestigious National Folk Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1984. In 2003, Charlotte's Mint Museum of Art mounted a major exhibition, "Burlon Craig and His Legacy."

**taken from www.gingeryoung.com