A celebration of the remarkable poem vessels of Dave the Potter David Drake, also known as Dave the Potter, was born enslaved in Edgefield in the backcountry of South Carolina near the Savannah River. Despite laws prohibiting enslaved people from learning to read or write, David was literate and signed some of his pots. His practice was not only to add his name and a date but also to embellish his work with verse—a powerful statement of resistance. The Words and Wares of David Drake collects multifaceted scholarship about David and his craft. Building on the 1998 national traveling exhibit catalog, I Made This Jar: The Life and Works of Enslaved African-American Potter, Dave, and featuring more than one hundred beautiful images and six new essays, this authoritative volume presents the diverse perspectives of scholars, artists, and collectors. The Words and Wares of David Drake adds important depth and context to our understanding of both Edgefield pottery and the life of Dave. David's work is now so highly prized it is the cornerstone of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's traveling exhibit of nineteenth-century ceramic art from Edgefield. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (September 8, 2022–February 5, 2023) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (March 6, 2023–July 9, 2023) University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor (August 26, 2023–January 7, 2024) High Museum of Art, Atlanta (February 16, 2024–May 12, 2024)

Chronicles the life of Dave, a nineteenth-century slave who went on to become an influential poet, artist, and potter.

"He is known today, as he was then, only as Dave. His jugs and storage jars were everyday items, but because of their beauty and sometimes massive size they are now highly sought after by collectors. Born about 1801, Dave was taught to turn pots in Edgefield, South Carolina, the center of alkaline-glazed pottery production. He also learned to read and write, in spite of South Carolina's long-standing fear of slave literacy. Even when the state made it a crime to teach a slave to write, Dave signed his pots and inscribed many of them with poems. Though his verses spoke simply of his daily experience, they were nevertheless powerful statements. He countered the slavery system not by writing words of protest but by daring to write at all. We know of no other slave artist who put his name on his work." "When Leonard Todd discovered that his family had owned Dave, he moved from Manhattan to Edgefield, where his ancestors had established the first potteries in the area. Todd studied each of Dave's poems for biographical clues, which he pieced together with local records and family letters to create this moving and dramatic chronicle of Dave's life - a story of creative triumph in the midst of oppression. Many of Dave's astounding jars are found now in America's finest museums, including the Smithsonian Institution, the Charleston Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston."--BOOK JACKET.

Where Is All My Relation? presents the first sustained academic discussion of the poetry, pottery, and culture of David Drake, an antebellum slave who distinguished himself by composing verse on the ceramics he produced in the years leading up to the Civil War. During the 1830s, 40s, and 50s, he incised couplets and signatures (a singular "Dave") onto the incredibly large storage vessels that he made. In fact, his stoneware pots and jars are among the largest made in North America during the antebellum era, and craft enthusiasts and appraisers are still proclaiming their precision and ambitious volume. Rich with biblical allusions, historical facts, and personal opinions, his art provides unique insights into the lives of slaves, craftsmen, and the culture of the American South in the first half of the nineteenth century. The essays here engage with the historical context and major issues that Drake's work provokes, among them: prohibitions against slave literacy; Drake's privileged status compared to other slaves at the time; the interpretive status of his material craft objects; the influence of contemporary African American poet George Moses Horton; and Drake's ability to sell his pottery despite the fact that slaves were not officially permitted to participate in a cash economy. Featuring essays by literary critics, art-historians, archaeologists, and curators, Where Is All My Relation? provides a window into the world of nineteenth century material culture and expands our traditional understanding of the slave-narrative genre.

A biography of Dave the Potter, an enslaved man and talented potter who carved poetry on his pottery.