Pattern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United St... by Henry Glassie

Beginning with Edival Rosas, who carves monumental baroque statues for churches, and ending with Francisco Santos, who paints images of the gods for Candomblé terreiros, the book displays the diversity of Brazilian artistic techniques and religious interpretations. Over the past decade, Henry Glassie and Pravina Shukla conducted intense research in the states of Bahia and Pernambuco, interviewing the artists at length, photographing their processes and products, attending Catholic and Candomblé services, and finally creating a comprehensive book, governed by a deep understanding of the artists themselves. Professional artists create images of both the Catholic saints and the African gods of Candomblé to meet the needs of a vast market of believers and art collectors. Sacred art flourishes today in northeastern Brazil, where European and African religious traditions have intersected for centuries.

Over the years, during a steady stream of intimate interviews, Glassie gathered the understanding that enabled him to compose this portrait of Daniel Johnston, a young artist who makes great pots in the eastern Piedmont of North Carolina. In 2000, when he was still Mark Hewitt's apprentice, Daniel Johnston met Henry Glassie, who has done fieldwork on ceramic traditions in the United States, Brazil, Italy, Turkey, Bangladesh, China, and Japan. Then, in concluding the second phase of his professional career, Daniel Johnston built an open-air installation on the grounds around the North Carolina Museum of Art, where 178 handmade, wood-fired columns march across a slope in a straight line, 350 feet in length, that dips and lifts with the heave while the tops of the pots maintain a level horizon. Next, he arranged curving clusters of big pots inside pine frames, slatted like corn cribs, to separate them from the slick interiors of four fine galleries in succession. First, he made a hundred large jars and lined them along the rough road that runs past his shop and kiln. With mastery achieved and apprentices to teach, Daniel Johnston turned his brain to massive installations. Then he set out to create beautiful pots, grand in scale, graceful in form, and burned bright in a blend of ash and salt. Back home in North Carolina, he built a log shop and a whale of a kiln for wood-firing. DANIEL JOHNSTON, raised on a farm in Randolph County, returned from Thailand with a new way to make monumental pots.

Pattern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United St... by Henry Glassie