The Process

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Making pottery is a labor-intensive process.  To say that a potter must have endless patience and stamina is a gross understatement.  From acquiring materials, preparation and processing of said materials, creating, shaping, and firing the pottery, to the finished product, the process takes months.  Some of the necessary tools that were listed in Decker’s inventory were:  pipe press, pipe mold, wooden rolling pin, wooden formers, shapers, stamps, round kiln separator, ring-shaped separator with side, separator for jugs, kiln furniture, grinding stone, iron tool, and kiln brick.”  A business the size of Keystone Pottery would have required an acute sense of business management, as well as a thorough knowledge of the craft itself.  From raw clay to delivery, the process is an intricate one.

The steps to create pottery are much the same for all potters, with the exception of the amount of materials and the mixtures of clay.  Ledger entries by Decker show that he paid people to deliver many items such as clay fudge, clay chalk, sandy clay, and cords of wood.  Clay is stored in a shed for several months to cure, filtered to remove impurities such as rocks, roots, and large debris, then dried.

H. Decker, grandson of Charles Decker, was quoted in the Kahoka Gazette-Herald describing the process as follows:  The clay was dug from the ground, then went through a grinding and was watered. He kept an old steam engine for grinding his clay, and another belt on the engine permitted him to grind meal.  It was weighed to determine the size of a pot it would become.  The shaping on the wheel was done in the summer, and the pots were stored in a cool place until winter, when the kiln was fired with wood cut close by.  It took a week to bake a batch of pots, and the kiln was kept fired night and day from Monday through Saturday.  Before baking the pots were glazed with a preparation Decker made and stored in a barrel.

Most of the pats were in shades of brown, and they included a number of sizes and uses – pitchers, jugs, cream jars, flower holders, apple butter jugs, chicken fountains, kraut jars and churns.  They sold for ten cents per gallon capacity.  Wagons carried the finished pots as far away as Virginia, and often they were peddled from the dozen or more wagons.  People also came to the pottery for purchases.

When the potter is ready to use the clay, it is cut into blocks. . .broken off, and crushed into smaller pieces.  Water is added and the clay is put into a pug mill to be ground.  The pieces are kept moist until needed, and worked into balls.  The ball is placed on a rotating wheel, which is operated by a foot pedal.  The potter works the clay by first making a hole in the center of the ball, continuing to raise up the clay until the sought-after shape begins to form.  The pottery is then dried on a rack.  In a Keystone pot, whenever the piece was finished, a single incised line near the top of the vessel and a beveled or grooved ridge at the base were added.

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The handles and lettering, which were identifying traits of Decker pottery, were put onto the pot before it was completely dry.  Then handles were done by applying pressure to the handles to make them stick.  According to Dr. John A. Burrison, a professor of Folklore at Georgia State University, a Curator at the Folk Pottery Museum of Northeast Georgia, and author of the book, Brothers in Clay, Decker’s frequent use of decorations set him apart as most potters didn’t care what their ware looked like, so long as it didn’t leak.  Decker’s use of cobalt, especially with tulip designs, was another identifying trait of his pottery.  Deep South pottery seldom was blue-decorated, according to Burrison.  Decker used cobalt to decorate pottery because it would hold up during firing.  Designs applied to the pottery could include tulips, elaborate leaves, wavy or straight lines, dots, thumb markings. . . hex signs, stars, screw heads, molded vegetables, and fleur-de-lis.  Script signatures and dates were added by using a tool called a comb. 

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The pottery was dried on a rack for several days until it reached a leather-hard state (referred to as green ware), and decorated.

The last step is the firing of the pottery in the kiln.  The building of the kiln is an intricate and complex process, and is critical to the end result of the pottery. Decker used the circular, updraft kiln lined with brick walls, as opposed to the cross-draft, groundhog kiln used by many potters.  The tunnel-like groundhog kiln, which was a trademark of Deep South potters, was limited as to the number of pieces that could be fired at one time.  While smaller pots could be stacked on top of the larger ones, the ideal situation was to place single pots on sand, due to the tendency of alkaline glaze to run.  Opposed to Decker’s larger kiln, the ground kiln was smaller to suit part-time family potting.  Decker’s kiln required an opening for the salt to be applied, flues to allow the heat in, and a chimney to let the heat out.

The photograph to the left shows part of the brick, circular updraft kiln at Decker Pottery.  The chimney rose several feet above the two-story building roof.  (See full photograph of the workshop under the Plan Decker Pottery)

The pottery at Keystone was glazed with cobalt, manganese, or salt.  Cobalt and manganese were applied before firing.  Salt was applied near the completion of firing, by being thrown into the kiln through the opening specifically made for that purpose.  This salt glazing process caused a glassy glaze to form on the pottery.  This glaze allowed foods to be stored without leakage and also kept odors from being absorbed into the pottery.  The surfaces were smooth and impermeable which also allowed for easier cleaning.

The kiln at Keystone Pottery was capable of holding up to 1,000 pieces of pottery. This was possible because of Decker’s use of the updraft kiln, in which he used several types of stackers that allowed pottery to be stacked in layers during firing.  These stackers are the cause of the firing scars that are usually a trait of Keystone pottery.  The average kiln held four to five gallons.  Because there are no records to indicate exactly how many pieces, or what size, were included in these calculations, based on an assumption of one-gallon containers, it could be assumed that the average kiln was half the size of Decker’s.  

There are no photographs of the interior portion of Decker's kiln.  The photograph above is an example of how the pottery might have been stacked.

The Process