Infrastructure: Making Pots in Trenton

Ever wonder how your Trenton pots were made? Or who made them? This is your opportunity to learn about clay-forming techniques, kilns and firing practices, glazes and decorating skills, and shop organization as practiced in Trenton, New Jersey, from the early days of William Rhodes’ stoneware and John McCully’s redware potteries to John Maddock’s hotelware and Walter Lenox’s fine china dinnerware in the twentieth century.

Program

9:00-9:30 am Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:30-10:00 pm Welcome and Opening Remarks
10:00 am-12:30 pm Demonstration and Lectures with questions following each presentation:

Mark Shapiro, Potter,
Demonstration of wheel techniques

Jean-Pierre Dion,
The Potter’s Craft in a Changing Environment, 1800-1920
Richard Hunter
Movers and Shapers: Trenton’s Pottery People, ca. 1750-1950
12:30-2:00 pm Lunch Break
2:00-4:00 pm Lectures with questions following each presentation:Bill Liebeknecht
All Fired Up: Kilns for all Occasions
Rebecca White
Cones & Rings & Props, Oh My!: Interpreting Trenton’s Kiln Furniture
Ellen Denker
In the Clay and Over the Glaze: Decorating Trenton’s Pots, 1750-1950
4:00-4:30 pm Wine Reception