Burlon Craig Large Face Jug

Monumental Burlon Craig stoneware face jug, signature on shoulder, "BB Craig."

Condition: Firing cracks and inclusions

Material: Stoneware

Period: 20th century

Dimensions: 19.25"H x 12" diameter

Inventory# V31372

Burlon Craig (1914-2002, Vale, NC), known as “BB Craig,” learned to make pottery as a teenager by trading labor-- chopping wood for local potter James Lynn in exchange for lessons. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he returned home and purchased Harvey Reinhardt’s kiln and farmland, settling into a life that balanced farming, factory work, and pottery. Craig helped revive the Catawba Valley pottery tradition, one of the foothills region’s rarest cultural contributions, rooted in techniques brought by German immigrants in the 18th century, which relied on wood-fired groundhog kilns and alkaline glazes made entirely from local materials. For more than 20 years, Craig was the only working potter in the Catawba Valley, the sole representative of the tradition, first producing primarily utilitarian stoneware-- churns, pitchers, crocks, and jars-- before expanding into the expressive face jugs, snake jugs, and ring jugs that would make him a legend.

In the 1980s, Craig's shop became a mecca for students of the alkaline-glazed stoneware tradition because, unlike other local potters, he retained all the old techniques. If it hadn't been for Burlon, the Catawba Valley Tradition would certainly have disappeared.

In 1981, examples of his work entered the Smithsonian Institution collection, and in 1984 he received the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship — the highest honor in American folk art. In 1991 he received the N.C. Folk Heritage Award, and in 2008 the Reinhardt-Craig House, Kiln and Pottery Shop entered the National Register of Historic Places. His work is held in fine museums across the United States, and pieces bearing his distinctive stamp remain among the most sought-after examples of Southern folk pottery.