Collection Dates: 1970s

Scope and Content Note: One film about Aunt Arie Carpenter; one film about the Meaders family.

Biographical Note: Aunt Arie Carpenter (1885-1978) lived in Macon County, North Carolina in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. She was interviewed for the first Foxfire book (published in 1972) and subsequent Foxfire books, where she shared her skills and philosophy of life. The Meaders family are world-renowned potters. The Meaders Pottery was founded in 1893. "In 1920 Cheever Meaders inherited the family pottery at Mossy Creek; a year later his brother Cleater set up a shop in nearby Cleveland. As local demand for food-related wares declined, tourists and crafts enthusiasts became their main customers. In the late 1950s Cheever’s wife, Arie, taught herself to throw and developed an imaginative line of colorful wares, including wheel-thrown birds and animals, to appeal to this outside market. Their son, Lanier (1917-98), who inherited his mother’s artistic vision and his father’s determination to keep making alkaline-glazed stoneware the old-fashioned way, took over the shop in 1967 and revitalized the tradition of jugs with applied faces. Lanier Meaders’s success encouraged others in the region, including members of his family, to carry on the craft today."--New Georgia Encyclopedia

Extent: 2- 16mm films

Provenance: Clarkesville Public Library