Matthew S. Jones, Matt Jones

1971 Born

EDUCATION

—Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana

APPRENTICESHIPS

—Todd Piker, Cornwell Bridge Pottery, Cornwell Bridge, Connecticut

—Mark Hewitt, Pittsboro, North Carolina

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE

1998—Studio Potter, Jones Pottery, North Carolina

BIOGRAPHY

Matt Jones produces coiled and wheel-thrown wood-fired functional stoneware pots including traditional kitchen wares, planters, and monumental vessel forms. Jones uses “blue pipe clay” first used by local Cherokee potters of the area, this blueish colored clay was later used by early settlers to make tobacco pipe heads. Jones’ surface techniques include slip trailing, brush applied oxides, salt, and alkaline glazes.  Many pots show mastery of wood-firing and simplicity of salt and alkaline glaze for surface treatment.

When employed, decorative motifs may include plant, birds, and animals. Jones’ pots are characterized by a broad strong rim which in addition to their aesthetic value are very helpful when stacking a kiln. The glazes that Jones creates reflect his Southern heritage and the influence of 19^th -and 20^th-century pots. Work is fired to 2300 degrees.

Jones has written, "It is important that my work is grounded in the Carolina traditions that go back 150 years, but I feel quite free to incorporate a modern sensibility and ideas from other cultures." Influences of classical Chinese and Mediterranean pottery can be seen in his forms and surface decoration.

One of Jones’ monumental jars, The Rooster Refutes Envy, (2011), records Jones slip-trailed response to a speech Garth Clark made about his view of craft. It is important to read Jones text below, in context of what Elaine Levin discussed in her 1988 book, The History of American Ceramics from Pipkins and Bean Pots to Contemporary Forms. Levin presents three trends in pottery that emerged between WWI and WWII: the traditional folk pottery vessel, the expressive or “American Modern” vessel, and the influence of industrial design. It is the divergence of the traditional folk pottery vessel and the expressive vessel, or “American Modern,” which Jones is reacting to. This divergence in approach to clay has evolved over the ensuing years. Although each trend advanced with energy and excellence of execution, a friction between the makers of the two branches of approach grew, as it appeared the traditional vessel forms of craft heritage were not recognized by some of the trend makers of the period.

The Rooster Refutes Envy, executed in a traditional folk style by Jones in 2011 – with the embedded slip-trailed retort to Garth Clark’s craft view – is reinforced by Jones' contemporaneous blog posts
(http://jonespottery.com/critique-of-a-critic-rising-to/) and provides primary source documentation of the veracity of Levin’s observation. Transcribed by The Mint Museum, the text is in order of the sides of the vessel from top to bottom and reads as follows:

(SIDE 1)

“Of course if you run the Math it may actually add up. But Look at it from Foghorn

(AKA Matt Jones) Leghorn’s common sense point of view. The sly bombastic and

mischievous Rooster is justifiably confounded and Irritated.

(October 19, 2011 Matt Jones Maker)

LEVITY is the KEY keep ‘em sunny side up!

(SIDE 2)

“I am NOT a Craft writer. My background is in the Fine Arts.”

-G.C.

WHAT?

GARTH CLARK drawn from Eric Odgen’s cover photo Shards: Garth Clark on Ceramic

Art © 2005 Ceramic Art Foundation & Distributed Art Publication

“Peter Voulkos was a potter” - G.C.

If you want to insist on this How are you not a Craft Writer?

(SIDE 3)

“The Craft Movement is Dead. Long Live Craft!”

- Garth Clark from his address at Portland Oregon’s Museum of Modern Craft titled

“How Envy Killed the Craft Movement: An Autopsy in Two Parts”

Did Someone just lay an EGG?  (Stink)

(SIDE 4)

Can Craft be so easily separated from its Movement?

I see myself and other Crafts people as Grass-Roots Organizers & Educators. Aren’t

the Galleries that carry our work part of the movement? What about the ACC, the

S.H.C.G.? Or the N.C.P.C. or the Mint Museum’s Delhom Service League? What about

Customers & Collectors? Carol Savion’s PBS series: Craft in: America? Books &

Magazines?

(SIDE 5)

Boy I said Boy That just don’t Add Up!

- FOGHORN LEGHORN

Foghorn Leghorn was created by Robert McKenson in 1946 for WB’s Looney Tunes &

Merrie Melodies

Genuine Country Funk

S.C.O.T.S. can get a witness?

well I declare! I’m bustin’ FREESTYLE”

October 19, 2011

Matt Jones

This Jar is the gift to The Mint Museum of Daisy Wade Bridges, Carol and Shelton Gorelick, Barbara Stone Perry, Jane M. Conlan, Carol H. Pharr, Dorothea F. West, Eric and Julia Van Huss, Alan and Bernette Bowen, Herb Cohen and José Fumero, Caroline T. Gray, Jane M. Hoyle, and Amy and Brian Sanders.

Transcription courtesy of The Mint Museum.