Talking with the Turners: Conversations with Southern Folk Potters (review)

Over the past several decades, scholars interested in Southern folk pottery have been treated to a wide variety of excellent publications detailing the uses of the region's abundant clay. Folklorists such as Charles "Terry" Zug, John Burrison, and, most recently, Joey Brackner have contributed valuable texts on the folk pottery traditions of North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, respectively. However, it appears to be increasingly difficult for scholars to find topics within folk pottery that have not already been thoroughly scrutinized and dissected by their colleagues in some way. Consequently, readers may approach Charles R. Mack's Talking with the Turners: Conversations with Southern Folk Potters with skepticism. Nevertheless, as the title suggests, Mack lets his informants do most of the talking, which adds considerably to the book's value for folklorists.

Mack, an art historian, has created an interesting and worthy study based on his fieldwork on southern folk pottery. His tone and writing style is inviting and personable, more akin to the register of a folklorist than that of an art historian. Readers come to know the potters as Mack encountered them, accompanied by photographs of both their art and their region's landscape. Mack provides a multitude of excellent color and black-and-white images that display the potters' art.

While Mack's subjects are interesting and his content is well organized, the amount of time between his initial fieldwork, which took place predominantly in 1981, and the date of the book's publication is considerable. Mack used this time to reflect on his notes, photographs, and interviews, and the years have helped him to piece together the significance of his data. This remains problematic, though, as Mack readily admits when he laments that he has accumulated numerous follow-up questions that he has never had a chance to ask. Furthermore, Mack includes a chapter titled "What the Future Holds"; the interviews discussed in this chapter also come from his 1981 fieldwork, which can hardly be seen as a true indication of what folk potters currently believe will become of their craft. In a brief epilogue at the book's end that builds on the potters' predictions, Mack attempts to hastily bridge the lapse of time since his initial fieldwork by providing a quick overview of how folk pottery traditions have unfolded over the last quarter century. The gap between Mack's fieldwork and date of publication may inhibit the book's worthiness as a classroom text; despite this, Talking with the Turners should be of great value to scholars researching folk pottery traditions and southern heritage, and the text effectively documents regional folk pottery traditions in 1981.

On the whole, Mack is masterful in his approach to reporting the potters' folklife, reaching beyond their craft and into their values and traditions. Mack garners information on the families' origins and ties, their thoughts and experiences on being trained in pottery making, and the business and marketing aspects of creating pottery for profit. Additionally, Mack collects potters' stories of their turning and burning methods, glazing techniques, the importance and design of their kilns, and tales from their experiences as potters. Familiar pottery families such as the Hewells and Meaders make appearances several times, and Mack is meticulous in providing brief biographies for nearly all of the informants discussed in the book.

Of particular interest to folklorists is the accompanying CD, which provides readers with the ability to hear with great clarity the voices of the artists themselves. At times, Mack provides a straight transcript of his interviews with the folk potters, and the dynamism of the potters' voices helps to enliven the written transcripts. The book's audio component, coupled with the text, makes this work an important addition to the libraries of folklorists who study material culture. Talking with the Turners is an...