While visiting the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. a few years back, I handled what I consider to be the most significant face jug made in George in the second-half of the twentieth century. And it is just as relevant today as it was 44 years ago.
In the collection of the Smithsonian's American Art Museum is a circa 1976 face jug that was made by Lanier Meaders, known as the "Two Headed Face Jug." Both sides of the jug reveal two different modeled faces, one to represent a United States congressman, the other a senator. One face has red eyes and a cunning expression, while the other wears a confused expression with red eyes. It is up to the viewer to decide which is the congressman and which is the senator. By presenting them as two sides of one jug, Meaders was suggesting that it is impossible for both parties to look in the same direction at the same time.
According to the National Endowment for the Arts, an independent federal agency in Washington, D.C., "Quillian 'Lanier' Meaders was born on October 4, 1917, near Cleveland in northern Georgia. At one time, the area had been among the most concentrated pottery centers in the state. Lanier's grandfather, John Milton Meaders started the Meaders Pottery in 1892, and all six of his sons learned the craft. But only Lanier's, father, Cheever made it a lifelong passion. He produced a variety of wares that were glazed with wood-ash or lime (alkaline) glazes. Later, he produced face jugs or whimseys, which were in high demand, though he (reportedly) didn't like them much.
Lanier Meaders helped his father run the shop, but he didn't become a full-time potter until 1967, when he was 50, around the time a Smithsonian crew arrived from Washington, D.C. to document the work of his father, Cheever Meaders. The museum wanted Cheever's face jugs for the first Festival of American Folklife. When Cheever became ill, Lanier stepped in to make enough of the jugs to fill the order. They sold for $2.50 each and became a hit. When his father died that year, Lanier took over the business. He is said to have created more than 10,000 face jugs (in his career). All of this life, he continued the alkaline-glazed stoneware tradition of the area, working along with a foot-powered treadle and a rectangular wood-fired tunnel kiln.
The face jugs produced by Lanier underwent a considerable evolution. The first ones featured blobs of clay representing the eyes, a nose, and a mouth applied to a jug wall. Later ones, featured careful attention to the details of the jug."
A Double Sided Political Face Jug Made by Lanier Meaders in Georgia
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