Charles Counts taught the potters art for years
Since the 1960’s, Lookout Mountain has been home to a vital community of creatives, many of whose lives were touched by legendary artist Charles Counts. Counts graduated from Berea College and Southern Illinois University before studying with Bauhaus master Marguerite Wildenhain.
Though he is best known for his work as a potter, Counts was a multi-disciplinarian who explored painting and textiles, working closely with the Southern Highland Craft Guild.
Counts was passionate about preserving traditional folk art in the south. In early 1965, he received a federal grant and started an apprenticeship program at Rising Fawn, a result of his work with the Smithsonian to assess the viability of using traditional crafts and folk art to revitalize impoverished areas. This program gave many local artists the opportunity to work directly with Counts.
Lookout Mountain Pottery ceramicist Mark Issenberg graduated high school in ‘68, and took a two month summer course at Rising Fawn that changed his life.
“It was the most incredible summer, and I ended up going back,” he explains. “Charles hired four of us—me, Tim Weber, Joe Massey, and Terri Lambert, as interns for two years. Taking the summer course was different than working for Counts. He was a bit wild, and an amazing potter, who influenced a ton of people, and we’re all proud to have had him as a teacher.”
Counts had a lot of influence because he wanted to keep folk pottery alive, and had work in many well-respected galleries. He was well known for his scraffito—a process of etching figures or designs into the clay.
He had special glazes that he would use to coat the pots, and when those dried, he would etch the surface of the clay and texture it, then coat it again with a light glaze.
“When Charles came in and went to work, it was amazing to watch him create his pots, because he was really gifted,” Joe Massey tells us. “He would make forms, and then when he got through doing everything he does to pots, paddling them, using slip, scraffito and drawing on the pots, they became something else. It went from just making pottery to making pieces of art.
“It was a very exciting time,” He continues. “We were apprentices, so we already knew how to make certain things. Charles’s teachings came across in his art classes, but we were setting up shows, and working festivals. We all arrived in January of 1972.”
Terri Lambert remembers her time as an apprentice.
“We were honored to work for him. We ate breakfast and lunch together, and then ate dinner on our own. It was a total immersion in making pots, and Counts was a really tough taskmaster. He was strong on form. All pots had to pass inspection. Charles would say, ‘throw 3 dozen mugs’ and we would do it, then he would examine them, flicking the ones that weren’t formally correct with his fingers. It was difficult, but man, did it make you good at throwing pots!”
“Everything we fired was cone 6 gas kilns, and we worked on kick wheels,” Issenberg adds. “In 68, he also had an old salt kiln. His father AR Counts and I rebuilt parts of it, he was a neat guy. Everybody who worked with Charles has this form that probably came from Marguerite Wildenhain. One thing he said that has always stuck with me is ‘A good potter can always clean their hands with their dirty throwing water’.”
Counts’ friends and apprentices loved him for the intensity of his thoughts and wisdom, a heritage that has become intertwined with Lookout Mountain’s art community. His vision was beautiful, much like the words he inscribed in a copy of Wildenhain’s “The Invisible Core” that he gave to Lamber.
“Dear Terri,” it reads, “books come and books go, like Time Magazine and the one that you need in the instant. Now is never there, so little does it matter that a speck of dust is in the eye. Tears are important. This is your own copy of a book that I treasure, from a woman, whose values were carefully taught. Among the legend and wisdom of Marguerite is this—a good teacher never lets down a good student, and vice versa.
“I have always wanted to remember you as a good student, and one thing is for sure, pottery is your disease, as it is mine and Marguerite Wildenhain’s. Time will move us all into a future that we create with love, devotion, and concentration, on a craft whose world is bigger than us all.” —Charles Counts, July 1973