“Brings quotidian Caribbean ceramic wares to life as material expressions of cultural adaptation and markers of the region’s socioeconomic history.”—Michael R. McDonald, author of Food Culture in Central America
“Weaves a complex history that links the Caribbean with Africa, Europe, the Americas, and India and draws together threads from indigenous cultures to the impact of the slave trade, indentured workers, colonial rulers, postcolonial politics, and global tourism.”—Moira Vincentelli, author of Women Potters: Transforming Traditions
“In the field of indigenous ceramics, cross-regional research is becoming increasingly important for potters, students, and scholars alike. Fay establishes a solid base for both further regional research and global comparative work.”—Elizabeth Perrill, author of Zulu Pottery
“Provides a historical and social context for the heritage of traditional ceramics in the contemporary Caribbean and at the same time grounds it in the everyday practice of potters.”—Mark W. Hauser, author of An Archaeology of Black Markets: Local Ceramics and Economies in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica
Beautifully illustrated with colorful photographs, this volume traces the living heritage of locally made pottery in the English-speaking Caribbean. Patricia Fay combines her own expertise in making ceramics with two decades of interviews, visits, and participant-observation in the region, providing a perspective that is technically informed and anthropologically rigorous. Describing the pottery created in Saint Lucia, Nevis, Antigua, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, and Guyana, Fay reveals that the traditional skills of local potters are inherited from diverse points of origin in Africa, Europe, India, and the Americas. She explores the challenges that lie ahead for this utilitarian art form as the tourist industry expands, showing how heritage ceramics exemplify the continuing Caribbean encounter between old and new, local and global, and traditional and contemporary.
A volume in the series Latin American and Caribbean Arts and Culture, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
