“Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay,” a Meandering Memoir of North Carolina


By Pam Everhardt Bloom, August 3, 2012



“Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay” by Christopher Benfey tells an intriguing story of art and crafts, history, Black Mountain College and the North Carolina connections found in Benfey’s lineage. A family memoir, the author describes his title, “Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay,” as three different paths, “each mapping the experiences of relatives or ancestors of mine trying - by art, by travel, or by sheer survival - to find a foothold in the American South.” The journey won’t disappoint. From the red clay of the North Carolina Piedmont to the hidden white clay pits of the Cherokee and on to the creative world of Black Mountain College, Benfey weaves a fascinating and true story that will surprise with its twists and turns and uncanny parallels.



He definitely has a fascinating family. Benfey takes their stories and finds tangents to explore that meander through equally interesting connections. His maternal ancestors and their ties to the red clay of the Piedmont, the red brick mentioned in the title, become a natural extension for Jugtown and its pottery. Stories of another ancestor, Quaker explorer and naturalist William Bartram, link with accounts of the quest by colonial explorers for the snow white clay of the Cherokee; a new world clay that would hopefully reveal the secret of Chinese porcelain.



Benfey’s father, a Jewish refugee from Berlin, had an uncle and aunt named Josef and Anni Albers. These famed Bauhaus artists found refuge at Black Mountain College, an experimental school in the mountains of North Carolina, founded in 1933. Recommended by American architect Phillip Johnson, Josef and Anni Albers brought innovative ideas and cutting edge artists to Black Mountain. That list of artists and innovators included Buckminster Fuller, Willem de Kooning, Jacob Lawrence and Robert Rauschenberg to name only a few. The Albers were most influential in the field of modern art and had an amazing impact on American art.



While delightful on its own, “Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay” could easily be the catalyst needed to explore North Carolina arts, past and present. Additional selections at the library about Black Mountain include books such as “Black Mountain, An Exploration in Community” by Martin Duberman and “Fully Awake: Black Mountain College,” a film by Catherine Davis Zommer and Neeley House. For more about Jugtown and the Seagrove area and the Cherokee, find these titles and others; “The Traditional Potters of Seagrove, North Carolina and Surrounding Areas from the 1800’s to the Present” by Robert C. Lock, “Jugtown Pottery, History and Design” by Jean Crawford, “Arts and Crafts of the Cherokee” by Rodney L. Leftwich, “North Carolina Art Pottery, 1900 - 1960” by A. Everette James, “Turners and Burners, the Folk Potters of North Carolina” by Charles G. Zug III, “The Potters Eye, Art Tradition in North Carolina Pottery” by Mark Hewitt and Nancy Sweezy and “North Carolina Pottery, the Collection of the Mint Museums.”