Historic Eastfield Village's biannual ceramic conference was held this weekend in East Nassau, New York, known as "Dish Camp," which brought together a group of professionals from a wide range of fields. This is an event that I have attended a number of times over the past decade or so, and it is something that I really encourage people to try and take part in, which draws from a strong academic, archaeology and from the potter's perspective on how to properly analyze historic pottery.
One of the impromptu discussions that took place on the second day was how loosely the word "attributed" can be used today, whereas this ceramic conference provides a better understanding about context, historical ownership, historical records (i.e. probates, censuses, inventories, etc.) and archaeology, and why so much information needs to be taken into account before considering a conclusion on where something was made, such as a specific potter's business, a town or city, a county, a state or a region. Past information, whether it is word of mouth or even sometimes books published up to 100 or more years ago is not always necessarily correct; you want to be able to support with evidence why something is said to have been made in a certain area.
Nevertheless, the next conference will take place in June of 2026, and I highly encourage anyone with an interest to try and attend; here is a link to this year's program, although Long Island scholar and collector Anthony Butera, Jr. and New York City ceramics specialist Diana Stradling also gave talks: https://www.historiceastfield.org/workshops/p/dish-camp.
Historic Eastfield Village's 2024 Ceramic Conference
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
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