I want to introduce you to my favorite potter. He was born next door in Biloxi MS. I loved his work so much when I first saw it because it is so different. He is the reason I took up pottery. They say he use to ride down main street in Biloxi in his Pajamas with that handlebar moustache just a flying. LOL...I bet he was a sight to see.
The following information is from wiki:
While Ohr had a healthy self-image, during his lifetime many others in the art world did not accept him or his pots, and considered him a boasting eccentric. In the early 1900s, the Arts and Crafts Movement and its leaders (such as William Morris) advocated that an artist should display control and perfection in all art forms. Ohr displayed little obvious perfectionism in his art or control in his person, antagonizing art leaders nationally and political leaders at home. Ohr's work is now seen as ground-breaking and a harbinger of the abstract sculpture and pottery that developed in the mid-20th century. Ohr's pieces are now relatively rare and highly coveted.
A notable feature of Ohr pottery is that many items have thin walls, metallic glazes, and twisted, pinched shapes. To this day potters marvel at Ohr porcelain-thin walls and unusual glazes. No one has been able to replicate them using a pottery wheel, which is how Or made his works. Or dug much of his clay locally in southern Mississippi from the Tchoutacabouffa River. Tchoutacabouffa is the Biloxi tribe's word for "broken pot.
