<p>Along a winding country road here, the wood kiln that the famed Meaders clan used to hone their craft now rots.</p><p>John Burrison's first pilgrimage to the now rundown relic of north Georgia's pottery boom was in 1968, just after Cheever, the clan's patriarch, died.</p><p>Cheever's son Lanier must have known that Burrison would devote his career to chronicling the hilly region's pottery, or at least that the young scholar was a folklorist at Georgia State University. Just before Burrison left, the potter called out "Don't be a stranger."</p><p>And Burrison wasn't, visiting every month or so for the next few decades to study the legends of Georgia's folk pottery world.</p><p>There was the Ferguson clan, which helped popularize the facejug, small clay plots emblazoned with hideous looking figures. And the Hewell family, which forged its own pottery empire across the county line in Gillsville, creating unglazed planters that were quickly snapped up by gardeners.</p><p>And, of course, the Meaders family, a clan whose artistry and devotion to pottery earned a visit by the Smithsonian Institute and, later, documentaries that chronicled the painstaking work that went into each clay jug.</p><p>The story of those families _ and their crafts _ is documented in the town of Sautee Nacoochee, where the Folk Pottery Museum of Northeast Georgia shows how pottery helped shape the region.</p><p>The museum starts by tackling a tricky question: How exactly to define "folk pottery."</p><p>It does so by displaying a clay pitcher that just doesn't seem to fit in. The handle looks a bit too curvy, the mouth flourishes a bit too conspicuously. The work looks like it's self-consciously trying to stand out.</p><p>And in a museum of ancient folk pottery, handed down from family to family for years, it does. "That's what folk pottery isn't," said Burrison.</p><p>Next to it are two pitchers, looking almost identical in style and glaze, dating from 1880 and 2001. Both aptly fit Burrison's definition: That the work skill isn't self-taught or taken up in a school or studio, but rather passed down along family lines or learned as an apprentice to a master.</p><p>The pottery was a matter of survival to north Georgia's settlers. Before modern canning and refrigeration, each household needed dozens of jugs to hold water and whiskey and preserve veggies, fruits and meat.</p><p>As technology improved and north Georgia began to prosper, the crafters began devoting more time to the artistry of their work. The pieces became more ornate, embellished by carvings of farm scenes or engravings of grape vines. And some started to churn out face jugs, devilish looking creations that some used to scare their children into doing chores.</p><p>Before he died, Lanier used to say that the jugs are "about the ugliest thing a person could make." But they were popular. "Seems like the more useless I make something, the more they'll trample each other to get it."</p><p>At the exhibit's end there's a showcase of dozens of works, crafted by a dozen or so living heirs of the Meaders, Ferguson and Hewell clans. For the most part, they don't seem much like the work of their descendants.</p><p>Some are very elaborate, others are experimental. One piece mixes two different types of clay. The demand has changed, and a thriving collector's market wants more and more unique pottery.</p><p>It makes Burrison think back to one of the most unique pieces of art ever created. It was Cheever Meaders' very last work, a tiny brown jug emblazoned with a cryptic line: "Don't ahad but just a sip."</p><p>Burrison still has no clue what the inscription means. But he files it along with the other tales and stories that arise when an ancient art gets a folksy twist.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x1d01154)</p>
