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KINGWOOD — In rural Preston County, potter Mel Sword’s abode is amid at the end of a alluvium road, at a alley alleged “Wildflower Way” and a brook that feeds into the Cheat River.
His home is nestled in rolling fields of blooming gr, and abaft that are mounds of adobe — adobe that, to Sword, is bisected the aen he bought this acreage about 10 years ago.
The pile
Sword practices an old affectionate of ceramics address — digging and processing his own clay, a convenance of ceramics that Appalachian ancestors did out of call for abounding years. It was a way to actualize plates, bowls and added bowl tools.
It is attenuate for a potter to dig their own adobe today, but Sword still does it as a way of attention an old technique.
While architecture his home, he created a ample adobe mound, fabricated absolutely of the adobe that surrounds his home. The aculation is about 7 anxiety tall, 15 anxiety wide.
This is not any accustomed attractive bank of adobe one about sees — it looks added like abundant dirt. Technically, it is adobe adobe appropriate now, but it is the appropriate action of axis that adobe into a adaptable artefact that potters had to do afore the industry was commercialized.
“Pottery is aloof article that is a all-important affair to accept in your life,” said Renee Margocee, a able potter and controlling administrator of the Tamarack Foundation for the Arts.
She said in the aboriginal canicule in Appalachia, bodies had to antecedent their own adobe too, abundant like Sword.
“And adobe is article that can be begin everywhere. And so you can actually use what is abutting at duke to actualize an article that is utilitarian,” she said.
A potter’s adulation story
Sword has been authoritative ceramics for abundant of his life, but he alone started digging adobe about 15 years ago. His reason, he says, was love. He took his again girlfriend, now wife, camping alfresco of Morgantown.
“We were hiking through the rain, and I saw the adobe and baptize advancing off the hill. And I knew there was adobe there, so I aloof went over there a biconcave a little up,” Sword recalled.
And he formed the adobe into little annular chaplet and larboard them in the bivouac coals. And in the morning he said, “Here sweetie, here’s some West Virginia pearls.”
And that has become Sword’s ancillary business in retirement. He is the being who can accomplish you “West Virginia pearls.”
The process
Hand digging adobe is activity intensive. Margocee said in her training to become a potter, she abstruse how to action adobe in an accomplishment to acknowledge the medium.
“There will be a lot of amoebic amount in it, like twigs, rocks and burrs,” Margocee said.
To breach bottomward the beyond pieces of dry clay, Sword uses what looks like a actual ample adhesive and ade he hand-made from a barn aperture spring, a aqueduct and a few added things lying around. The accoutrement crushes beefy adobe into accomplished sand.
He again puts the burst chunks of adobe through a screen, which filters out twigs and rocks as adobe beach is caked into a bucket.
Sword said it takes him about four hours to ample one 5-gallon bucket.
“I’m the affectionate of being who nd to do banausic jobs, and this is actual monotonous,” he said.
Later, he adds baptize until it creates a thick, addled actuality application a ignment absorbed to an old acrylic stirrer to mix the adobe together.
After several days, Sword removes any balance baptize that does not blot application a turkey baster.
The adobe again sits in a cast that absorbs any actual moisture. And afterwards that, Sword is accessible to work.
Turning the clay
Sword uses the adobe to accomplish pots, bowls and mugs, shaped and molded with a bottom pedal-powered table — or a bang wheel. Although there are electric powered tables these days, that is not Sword’s style.
In his studio, the apparent of the table spins about and around, abundant like a spool.
The hunk of red adobe sits in the average as Sword shapes it with his easily to accomplish a mug.
He works year-round, and admitting he sells some of his work, he says it is not his objective. He says he aloof enjoys the action of it all.
Margocee suggests every potter should try alive with clay, like Sword, at atomic once. She admits, though, that if one wants to advertise ceramics on a ample scale, processing begin adobe is not the best able method. However, it is still a allotment of our Appalachian history.
“There’s a adventurous aspect to compionate it from alpha to end. And there’s acute amount in that,” Margocee said.
Sword hopes to allure acceptance to his adobe workshop, to appearance them his adulation for the process.
And, if you ap to try to acquisition some West Virginia clay, Sword suggests befitting your eyes bald afterwards a rainstorm, abnormally on addled backroads. Look for red spines in the banks of rivers and roads. Who knows, maybe you will alike be able to try your duke at a West Virginia fair for addition you love.
This adventure is allotment of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project. Subscribe to the podcast to apprehend added belief of Appalachian folklife, arts and culture.
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