By Vernon Owens

This particular pot has the rare 1960 round top stamp only used in 1960. It is also inscribed with the number 2 on the bottom. Perhaps indication a glaze or shape test of some kind.

Jugtown Pottery in Seagrove, Moore County, North Carolina is in the center of the North Carolina pottery tradition. It was founded in 1917 by Jacques and Juliana Busbee. The Busbees were artists originally from Raleigh, North Carolina. The couple set about creating opportunities for potters to preserve traditional regional skills. It was the traditional orange glazed, salt fired wares of the region that had attracted the Busbees to Seagrove.

John Mare purchased Jugtown in 1960 and hired Vernon Owens to throw pots for Jugtown. Vernon’s brother, Bobby Owens, along with Charles Moore glazed the ware, loaded and fired the kiln. The Owens brothers are the sons of M.L. Owens, who added the s to his surname and the grandsons of James H. Owen. After Mare died in 1962 Vernon Owens leased the pottery and ran it until 1968 when it was purchased by Country Roads, Inc. a nonprofit corporation dedicated to preserving traditional handcrafts. He continued at Jugtown Pottery through the ownership of Country Roads, and in 1983 he purchased the pottery from Country Roads, Inc.
The main influences in Vernon's pots come from the Moore County, NC pottery tradition, (the utilitarian wares such as jugs, pitchers and churns made in the 18 and 19th centuries), and the art pottery era which began around 1917, from which classical vases and bowls from Korea, China and Japan became the inspiration. Vernon received a North Carolina Folk Heritage Award from the NC Arts Council in 1994. In 1996 he received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Vernon received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from North Carolina State University in December of 2000. He was also part of the Carolina Preserves project with artist William Mangum in 2000
The Frogskin Glaze: Extensive research was done by the pottery’s owner, Jacque Busbee who created many of the colors for the pottery. Pots glazed in Frogskin glaze are coated with the same glaze as seen in the pottery’s Teadust glaze, only Frogskin is fired in the third or fourth chamber of the wood kiln, where salt is added at the very end of a firing. The sodium in the salt reacts the way bleach works on clothing—it bleaches the iron-rich Teadust glaze and creates an olive green to mustard colored finish, with a glossy surface. Historically, Ben Owen III’s family and many other potters in the Seagrove area became aware of a natural clay from Albany, NY (known as Albany Slip) that could be used as a glaze. They began to use this natural clay as a glaze, throwing salt into the kiln at the very end of a firing in order to get the aptly named “frogskin” green-to-mustard color and glossy surface


This particular pot has the rare 1960 round top stamp only used in 1960. It is also inscribed with the number 2 on the bottom. Perhaps indication a glaze or shape test of some kind.  8" Tall, 5 1/2" Diameter