Jim's Large Face Mug w/Cigar

Collect a special piece handcrafted by Renowned Artist Jim McDowell in Weaverville, NC

Face Mug measures 4"x4" with handle with a beige and brown speckled glaze.

Artist Statement

I’m Jim McDowell, the Black Potter. I’ve been making face jugs for over 35 years, always in the tradition of my African American and Caribbean ancestry. My face jugs are ugly because slavery was ugly. My four-times Great Aunt Evangeline was a slave potter in Jamaica. She made face jugs. I first heard about her and face jugs when, as a young man, I attended a family funeral and was listening to some of my elders talking about this. Among them was my grandfather, Boyce McDowell, who owned his own tombstone business in Gaffney, South Carolina. My family said that slaves were never given gravestones, so face jugs were sometimes made and used to mark a grave. It’s too late now, but I wish I could ask my grandfather if he chose his profession to right a wrong.

Africans made face jugs for use in spiritual and funerary practice or to ward away evil as in the practice of conjure. There are many myths and stories about these jugs. Sometimes a face jug was buried next to the doorway of a home, in the belief it held a spirit of protection. I’ve heard they are created ugly to scare away the devil. Another story says if the face jug on a grave is found to be broken, the soul of that person went on to heaven. Whatever the reason for their existence, I know face jugs were made by enslaved Africans in this country. When I first made one, I gave it Black features, sometimes exaggerated, thick lips and a broad nose with flaring nostrils. I’ve kept that style. I make teeth out of broken china to give them a scary or fierce look. I sometimes put stained glass on the face so when it’s fired the glass runs down like tears. An enslaved man named David Drake lived on the Edgefield, South Carolina plantation. He was known for making large jugs of exceptional quality used for food storage. “Dave” was literate and somehow got away with writing on his jugs, even signing his name. I write on my jugs to pay homage to him.

In 2025, both the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and the Smithsonian‘s National Museum of African American History and Culture will add Jim McDowell’s face jugs to their permanent collections.