Different sized stamps were made for different sized ware and more than 60 variations of the mark are known. Some pottery figures were kneeling with others standing or seated.

Recalling and depicting these memories in porcelain created unique and personal art pottery.Īlmost all Pisgah Forest pottery was stamped on the base with a figure of a potter at the wheel and the year produced. He visited the nearby Sioux, lived in a sod home, met Bill Cody, plowed with a steer, hunted, played fiddle and watched his mother spin yarn. Born in Iowa in 1876, Stephen moved west to Nebraska in a covered wagon. His freehand painted or pâte-sur-pâte cameo decorations were inspired by his pioneer youth. Although achievable by only a handful of American potters, Stephen accomplished crystalline glazes with a fifth-grade education and much determination. One of Stephen’s special interests was crystalline glazes characterized by crystal clusters of various sizes and colors. Vases with turquoise over wine and pink interiors became trademarks of the shop for decades. Aware of the trending Art Deco taste in bright colors, Stephen added turquoise blue, wine, rose, yellow and green.

Initially, Pisgah Forest produced semi-matte green or copper red versions of Chinese glazes. Stephen also sold work at Allanstand, the shop for the prestigious Southern Highland Craft Guild, becoming their first pottery member in the 1930s. Pisgah Forest pottery was well received and sold regionally in Asheville, Hendersonville, Maggie Valley and Tryon, including at the Grove Park Inn and Pisgah Inn. The pottery sold well and over the next few years he expanded his shop and hired several assistants. In 1926, he placed a sign on the highway and officially opened his new venture. In 1925, Stephen began construction on a new home and pottery in Arden, just off Highway 191. Small kilns were constructed and he marked his pieces on the base with a new pottery name, Pisgah Forest. He read avidly and developed a new interest in Oriental forms and glazes. His love of pottery would not be denied, however. The shop was not the financial success he desired and, in 1916, Stephen left the pottery profession to undertake a variety of masonry jobs. His designs of ivy and grapevines, created freehand in all white porcelain, resembled the molded Wedgwood jasperwares made in England.

He became a decorator as well as potter, continuing the raised slip, painted style begun by his mother. Here in the mountains, he found a tourist market along with abundant clays and minerals. They named their enterprise Nonconnah, the Native American word for ‘long stream’.įollowing the death of his parents in 1910, Stephen moved to North Carolina and, three years later, opened a second Nonconnah shop just off Hendersonville Road. Stephen built a small kiln and shop where he made and fired the shapes which his mother Nellie decorated with multi-colored, raised decorations of native flowers. With no prior experience, but masonry skills learned from his father and a love of art from his mother, he began a lifetime adventure with pottery. Stephen’s introduction to the ceramic world began in 1903 with a chance discovery of clay on the family farm near Memphis, TN. Stephen, working in a crude shop in Skyland, began the area’s-and the state’s-first art pottery. Today, Western North Carolina receives national attention for its many potters and other crafters who create amazing works from clay.

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