Dreaming in Clay on the Coast of Mississippi
Vanderbilt University English and Spanish literature professor Maurer and his wife Iglesias, an amateur pottery collector trained as an academic, discovered Shearwater Pottery of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, by chance. Their first visit, however, convinced them they wanted to tell the family's (and the pottery's) story, drawing on interviews and family members' journals as well as archival research. Over the years, Shearwater became an art colony, with painters, carpenters, sculptors, and writers as well as potters practicing their arts. Maurer and Iglesias not only discuss their works (there's a helpful appendix on the "marks" the pottery used over the years) but also describe marriages and illnesses, the struggle to keep the business going during the Depression, and family members who left Mississippi and, years later, returned to the family business. An involving, often moving narrative.Mary CarrollCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved