This appealing pitcher and vase set were thrown by Ben Owen II, a potter who lived and worked in Seagrove, North Carolina. In September of 1966, we visited Tom and Margaret in Chapel Hill and they took us on an excursion to Seagrove, where we bought these fine works of art. Ben Owen was very much a traditionalist, sticking closely to tried-and-true shapes and glazes. He was "old-fashioned," and I am equally so. Lots of weird things have been done with clay during the last sixty years, but these shapes are more pleasing to my eye than modernistic distortions and abstractions.
The glaze is called "frogspit" but "frogskin" would make more sense.
When I moved to a new home in 2009, the Ben Owen pots disappeared. I thought they had been lost in the move, but after a couple of years of searching, I located them. In fact, I had packed them so carefully and securely that they were virtually buried. But I persevered.
These splendid objects have now (except when they went AWOL) been on prominent display wherever I've lived for more than half a century. It's curious, and a fact, that not one guest has ever asked a single question about them. They've not been noticed. Are my friends unobservant?
I think that the pitcher and the vase are so discreetly beautiful that they don't demand attention, a fact which makes me love them all the more.
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