(upbeat music) - [Narrator] "Illinois Stories" is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Hello, welcome to "Illinois Stories".

I'm Mark McDonald in Ripley, where back during the middle to late 1800s, this may have been the second biggest producer of pottery in the country.

A huge repository of clay near here that was usable for potters was at their disposal, and a lot of companies came in here to make pottery.

Now, in 2022, Jack and Hildegard Cannon are about the last ones left making pottery, and even Jack retired a couple of years ago, but they did want to show us how it was done.

Well, you're looking at a sketch of Jack Cannon here, working in his pottery production facility.

This was lovingly drawn by one of your kin, wasn't it?

- Yes, my brother.

- One of your brother, he's a pretty good sketch artist.

- Yeah, he wasn't bad.

- (laughs) Since the seventies, Jack, of course... We're gonna talk about Ripley a lot, 'cause Ripley was the home for some really big pottery operations.

By the time you moved here in the seventies, you were about it, weren't you?

- [Jack] Yes, I was.

- [Mark] Yeah, and why did you pick Ripley?

- Well, we had...

I had read about Ripley from Betty Madden's book on early arts and architecture in Illinois, published by University of Illinois Press.

And it had just, showed some Ripley pottery in it.

And so I knew that Ripley had, was a source for hand thrown wear.

And of course, my first love for hand, for throwing, was back in 50s, in 51.

And I never seen a potter's wheel before that.

Before that, I studied art, but I never studied anything made with potter.

- [Mark] Turns out you were pretty good at it, weren't you?

(laughs) - Well, I loved... We were at an Indian school in Cherokee, Tahlequah, Tahlequah, North Carolina.

And...

They taught pottery there at the Indian school.

That's a strange thing.

But they had somebody from Alfred, New York that came in there.

So I knew they taught pottery there at Alfred.

And so, when I started teaching art, after being in the Army...

I knew that I wanted to go somewhere, avail myself of GI Bill, and study pottery making.

- [Mark] Wow.

- [Jack] And so we did move, make the move.

I married my wife there at the little school that we taught at in Corydon, Indiana.

And so then we went from there and moved up to Alfred, New York.

- Can I, can I fast forward you a little bit?

- Yes.

- You ended up at SIU Edwardsville, didn't you?

- Yes, I ended up teaching there as a Professor in Ceramics.

- And then from there, you had read about Ripley, and that brought you here.

- [Jack] That's correct.

- [Mark] And you ended up, you and Hildegarde, ended up making a business out of pottery.

- [Jack] Right.

- [Mark] And you're gonna show us some of these items.

I still can't believe... You sold a lot of items through the years, but you kept a lot of items too.

And some of these, I'm looking at this frog series.

This is hilarious.

(Jack laughs) And I can't imagine, I can imagine throwing a pot, but to be able to throw items like this with these configurations and the colors and everything, it's just spectacular.

- [Jack] Well, I studied all this up at Alfred in terms of...

They taught, as a two year MFA program, and they taught Engineering.

Actually I, my degree was in, to be a designer in a factory or anywhere.

And so mold making was all in it.

And so then that was the...

They taught you the fundamentals.

- [Mark] And, these are all, what we're looking at here, these are all made with the Ripley clay, right?

- [Jack] Right, and then the glazes were developed by myself from my knowledge of glaze.

- [Mark] Can I touch this item?

- [Jack] On yeah, they can be handled.

- [Mark] Okay, tell, tell us about, tell us about this one.

- All right, now this one was fired in a saggar.

And a saggar is just a contained ceramic form that will hold wood ash or wood chips.

And so then that would smoke the wear and drive the smoke into the clay.

That's the way I made the pot over here, the little stove.

- Oh, the stove?

I love this, because-- - [Jack] See, it was fired in a-- - [Mark] Look how intricate this is.

The hinges even move on this.

Look at this.

(laughs) - [Jack] Yeah, I think they got broken at one time, but they did.

- [Mark] Isn't that something, it looks so much like metal.

- [Jack] And then, so this black was achieved with, by being fired inside some saw dust.

And so then the saw dust kept the air out of it.

Uh oh, that dropped down in there, but, see that fits there in front.

That's exactly the way that stove worked.

- [Mark] Now, these other pieces over here, some of these look rather industrial.

You know, these glazes look different.

For instance, these flat glazes look different.

And there's a reason for that, isn't there?

- [Jack] Yes, they are salt fired, and that is where you introduce salt.

You have to have a kiln especially adapted to hold the salt vapors.

- [Mark] And that's a good looking vase.

- [Jack] And so, this is a cobalt slip that is squeegeed on that.

- [Mark] Would this have been similar to what was produced here, mass produced here when the factories were here?

- [Jack] They did some salt firing, yes.

- And then there's...

This is a gorgeous piece and that's probably worth a lot of money 'cause people are looking for those kinds of receptacles all the time.

- When we started having sales, the story is that we...

Originally, we just sold right out of the shop, one to one, and a customer would come in, say what they wanted.

And I would say, "Well, wait a few weeks, "and next kiln load, I'll put your order in".

So I took orders at the time, and we, if I didn't have the thing on hand.

But we had to continually be at the shop in order for them to buy things.

- Yeah.

- And so we found out that we couldn't leave even on a Sunday.

- It'd be easier in this day and age, wouldn't it?

- [Jack] Yeah.

- [Mark] 'Cause you can actually transport the stuff around.

- [Jack] But we did.

I did some art fairs and things like that.

- [Mark] Now you said, was this a circus, part of your circus series?

- [Jack] Yeah.

I did a whole series on circuses.

And actually I took my grandchildren to a circus when they had one, that had elephants.

- [Mark] I bet these sold really well.

- [Jack] Well, I think we had several made, not just this, but several pots made with it.

- [Mark] There's one back in the corner there that has a circus clown on it.

- [Jack] Yeah, he did that.

- And all the faces in the crowd, isn't that something?

Isn't that something?

Hildegarde's here too, and during this program, we're gonna get a chance to learn more about the industry.

- History.

- That was in Ripley because around, in the late 1800s, it may have been like the second biggest producer of clay products in the country.

- That's correct.

- And so we'll learn about that, and then you're gonna take us down to your production facility, which you're not using anymore, but it's still just the way it was when you stopped potting, right?

- Yes.

- Okay.

Well thanks, Jack.

- Pretty much, not exactly like it.

- But pretty much.

- Yeah.

- Okay, well we'll see you a little later.

- Okay.

- Hildegarde, as far back as the 1830s, there were potters coming through here and they were taking their products to Rushville, which is only about nine or 10 miles from Ripley.

And you know, got in some trouble crossing the river, I guess, and decided to check out the clay here.

And they found out that the clay in Ripley was pretty darn good, didn't they?

- Yes.

- So a lot of 'em decided to stay.

- Yes.

- Some of 'em actually became pretty big factories, didn't they?

- Yes.

- We are looking at, well, you got some pictures out here for us.

Just name a few of the bigger producers for us, if you would.

- [Hildegarde] L.D.

Stoffer, which was, this house belonged to him, he died in 1888.

- [Mark] Oh, you live in Stoffer's house, huh?

- [Hildegarde] Yes.

- [Mark] Okay.

(laughs) - And there's a kiln on the other side, over on the pasture, and that was his kiln.

And previously it was owned by J.T.

Roberts.

- He had a pretty big factory.

They hired what, dozens or hundreds of people I guess, here.

- Oh yes, and he also had a pottery down in downtown Ripley.

- Okay.

- So he had two potteries.

This one is the I.N.

Stout, Isaac Newton Stout pottery.

And...

It was first started by Francis Marion, his father.

And they were down at Logan Creek, which is on the back way to Versailles, there's a little creek that goes by, and his first pottery was there.

It burnt.

And he moved up here and built a large pottery building.

- [Mark] Yeah, it's this one here.

- [Hildegarde] And it was run by steam.

- [Mark] Oh yeah, okay.

- [Hildegarde] So the wheels were run by steam.

Everything was run by steam.

And he even charged the potters the amount of steam that they used.

- [Mark] Is that right?

(laughs) Well, here's what happens though, what happened.

Ripley was, didn't have a railroad going by.

- No.

- It didn't have a sizable river where they...

So these big companies are making all this pottery and they got no way to get it outta here.

So they pretty much by the 1880s, they decided to move on, didn't they?

- Yes.

The...

The way they would...

Most of the pottery that went out, anybody that owned a wagon and horses, they would come with their wagon and they would load pottery onto the wagon with straw.

And then they'd take all through the countryside, and they'd stop at different stores or people's houses and sell it, and when they sold out, they'd come back and get another load.

So that was some of his workers.

- Kind of a hard way though, to make money, because I mean, you can make it all you want, but if you can't get it to the customers... - That's right.

- Now, you and Jack tell me that if you go outside here and dig around, you'll find stuff like this just everywhere.

- [Hildegarde] You can not put a shovel in the dirt without hitting pottery shards of some type.

- [Mark] And what you find in here, I mean, for instance, these things, all of these things were items that were made for the production of pottery, right?

- [Hildegarde] Yes.

- [Mark] And when you use them in the kiln.

- [Hildegarde] Yes.

These were the way they told the temperature of the kiln.

When it reached a certain temperature, they would set it off and they would take these out by a draw tow.

- [Mark] And a rod would fit through there, and they'd pull it out.

- Right.

Now, this one is Albany glaze, that is salt glaze.

- [Mark] And, and then they'd pull it, I guess, the expert, the master potter or whatever he was called, could tell by looking at that, whether it was time to pull the pots out, or just turn the kiln off, right?

- [Hildegarde] Right.

- [Mark] And what about the marbles and all these other interesting things?

- [Hildegarde] Well, they made toys.

And of course they had children, so they had marbles.

They had toys.

And for adults, they had pipes, and they had made little jugs.

These, I found in my garden.

- [Mark] Oh aren't those cute?

Yeah, if you look real... You gotta look real close to figure those are a jug, but that was another toy, wasn't it?

- Well, and also, if you look at the picture here, there's boys in front, I mean, young boys, they were called ball boys and they would do everything for the, get the clay ready for the thrower.

And they got a jug for every day they worked.

- [Mark] Oh, okay.

- [Hildegarde] So that when it came to pay day, they'd count how many jugs he got, and he got paid.

- Okay.

(laughs) And these, this, for instance, this is another one of those items that were used in the kiln to prop up items, right, to keep them leveled so they wouldn't fall over?

- [Hildegarde] This was put on the floor of the kiln.

And this one probably was a 10 gallon.

And a crock was put on it and would stack one on top of the other, keep on stacking.

And they'd have another one right next to it.

- [Mark] So they didn't put shelves in the kiln.

They just would stack 'em on each other.

- Right.

- Huh.

- And wherever they were touching each other, the glaze had been wiped off.

And then they had these big stacks.

And in order for them to keep from falling, they would wad clay in between.

And you can see the fingerprints of the wad of the person that me to stack the kiln.

- [Mark] I'll be darned, okay.

All very useful, okay, and let's see.

And these, for instance, these also demonstrate that, don't they, because these would've been stacked wouldn't they?

- [Hildegarde] Yeah, Jack, give me a handle.

A mug would be right.

They were done this way.

This was cut out for the handle.

Well, this doesn't fit, but it would fit down on it.

- [Mark] Oh, okay.

- [Hildegarde] Where the handle would be like this, you know?

- [Mark] And then you'd stack another one on top.

- [Hildegarde] And then you'd put another one on top of it, and then another of these with it.

- Why didn't they use shelves?

They hadn't thought of it, or they didn't have materials that would... You couldn't use wood 'cause it'd be too hot in there to use wood, so I guess they couldn't.

They didn't have metal shelves, I guess.

- No, no metal shelves at all.

- Okay, interesting.

Now, you and Jack still have, now it's been a couple of years since Jack threw pots, but you still have your facility and you got a barn down there and you can kind of show us a little bit about how it was done.

Can we go down there next?

- Sure.

- Okay.

Well Hildegarde, now this clay is just pretty much the way it looks when you bring it in here from the pit or the clay source, whatever.

I'm not sure what that's called, but this is what it looks like, and that's about the normal color for it, isn't it?

- [Hildegarde] Yes.

- [Mark] Is that a nice, usable color?

Do you like that color?

- Yes, it...

When it's washed, it comes out a gray, a brownish gray.

- Mm hmm.

And then the next thing would be to beat that up into smaller pieces, right?

- Yes, and we do that with a hammer mill.

- And that's a machine.

- And that's commercial, yeah.

Yeah, it's run by electricity.

- Yeah, we don't have that out here, because it's a winter day and Jack hasn't made anything for a couple of years.

So you're not really producing clay right now, but thank you for showing us how it's done.

And then after you beat it up and get it into small manageable pieces, you're mixing it?

- With extreme amount of water.

And that's so it can go through that screen, which is about three times as fine as a regular window screen.

- [Mark] And we're talking about this over here.

- [Hildegarde] Right.

- [Mark] So it goes ahead and it gets mixed in here and then you transport it through a hose over here and it strains it, right?

- [Hildegarde] In a pump, yeah.

- [Mark] Okay, and then it goes down into that tank.

- [Hildegarde] And from the tank, we have a pump that pumps it to the trays.

- [Mark] Okay and what the is the consistency of that when it hits the tray, what would you, how would you describe it?

- [Hildegarde] It's pretty soupy.

- Soupy?

- Yeah.

- Okay, all right.

And then does it settle in the tray, or do you carry it in, in the soupy, in a sort of a soupy?

- No, we let the water drain through the cloth line tray.

And then when it gets hard enough for me to pick up with my hands, then we take it in.

And the outside is usually hard, harder than the middle.

- Yeah.

- So we're taking it in, in two different consistencies.

- When Jack was building, was making a lot of pottery, how many of those trays would you make for him?

- 10.

- 10.

That would last him how long?

- One year.

- One year?

- Yeah.

- He's an industrious guy.

(laughter) That's a lot of pottery.

Okay, let's go in if we could, huh?

Hildegarde, it seemed like you were doing a lot of the work, getting the stuff ready for Jack to work with.

- Yes.

- We talked about the screens.

You unload it from the screen.

It comes in here and then you store it here.

You keep it in plastic and it stays soft, doesn't it?

- [Hildegarde] Yes.

- [Mark] Can you reach in there for us and show us?

Yeah, look at that.

And that'll last for years, won't it?

- [Hildegarde] No, it'll eventually dry out.

But as long as is we're using it, we can put it from here.

- [Mark] And then you make these rolls out of it, huh?

- [Hildegarde] Into there.

- [Mark] Yeah, and that's what, you've got some rolls ready here.

- [Hildegarde] Yes, that's what... - [Mark] Okay, and then, what does this machine do?

- [Hildegarde] This homogenizes it.

Remember, I told you, it come in some hard, some soft?

- [Mark] Right, right.

- [Hildegarde] Well this homogenizes it to one consistency.

- [Mark] Okay, gets it all mixed up and that way you, okay.

So when Jack wants to work with it, he's, it's all mixed up, it's all one consistency thing.

- [Hildegarde] Right.

- [Mark] Okay, go ahead, and if you would.

(machine whirs) - [Hildegarde] Now it's coming out the other end.

- [Mark] Sure is.

- [Hildegarde] Then after it comes out that end, then we can store it in these rolls, and then Jack takes it from here.

So over here... And he kneads it.

You wanna do that, Jack?

- Oh he kneads it, huh?

So it's not enough to have it homogenized.

It's gotta be kneaded, too, huh?

- Now, that gets to the air out.

When it went through that machine, it's not blocking any air that's being mixed too.

- [Jack] Take it, and you can... Yeah, that's... - [Hildegarde] Is that enough?

- [Jack] Yeah, that's plenty.

- [Mark] And you knead it, it's just like dough, isn't it?

- [Hildegarde] Like bread.

- [Jack] This is a matter of getting it thoroughly homogenized.

- How long before you get all the air bubbles out of it, how long do you have to do that?

- Oh, long enough.

- Long, too long, huh?

(laughter) When you'd rather be working that pot.

- Yeah.

- You're doing this, huh?

- Yeah, now these... And you can slam.

Down.

And knead it some more.

This is a little soft, so it won't...

But this, this I either measure or weigh out so that if I'm throwing a certain size, I can approximate the size I'm working on the wheel with.

Okay, and then I pat it into the ball and it's ready to throw with.

- [Mark] Well, this is kind of a momentous occasion.

You haven't thrown anything for a long time.

- Oh no, I haven't.

- Neat, neat.

- This is a kick wheel that I came here with, and it's motorized to where it turns on and off.

It works pretty good.

But it takes a while to build up momentum.

But this, this is a Japanese kiln here, a wheel.

It's called a whistle wheel and it is quiet.

- [Mark] It sure is.

And Jack, I want to reiterate, it's been what?

A couple of years since you've done this?

- [Jack] Yeah.

- [Hildegarde] No, he did this last year.

- [Mark] Oh, last year?

- [Hildegarde] Last year.

- [Mark] Okay, how's it feel?

- [Jack] Well, it feels good.

- [Mark] Does it?

I bet, it looks like it feels good.

- Yeah, you see, you can center it.

And then of course, everything starts with a cylinder, usually.

- [Mark] Look at that, perfect, perfectly round.

You still got it, Jack.

- [Jack] Well, maybe.

You don't give your last one.

- [Mark] That's right, you gotta stay quiet, don't you?

- [Jack] But then you knuckle it up.

Now there are different ways to hold your hands, but you draw it up by, by grasping some clay down here at the bottom.

And then, then you can, as long as it stays round, then you can bring it on up to the thinnest you want.

- [Mark] Beautiful.

- [Jack] And that'd be the way you do it.

- [Mark] Sweet.

- [Jack] Now that, I could thin that more, but I'm not.

- (laughs) Hey, I got an idea.

As long as we've seen this, this part of the process, I want you to show us more of your finished stuff.

Okay?

- Okay.

- Here you go.

- Jack, you still got a nice variety of pots that you've made over the years, but at this table here, these look distinctive.

They're different.

It's the white and the black color that makes them look really distinctive.

How do you do that?

- Well, they're made in saggars, and I put wood chips in the saggar.

And then that drives the carbon into the clay.

And that gives, depending on little pieces of oxidation that occur, that gives the black effect on these pots.

- [Mark] So, so you put them in there and get 'em black before you put 'em in the kiln.

Is that right?

- [Jack] No, they go into the kiln.

- [Mark] Oh, in here.

- [Jack] In here.

- [Mark] Okay, all right.

- [Jack] And stay in here, and this seals the carbon into the pot.

- Okay, and you never really know where the carbon's gonna expose, do you?

- [Jack] I don't.

- Sometimes it pops out .

Well, glaze is kinda inexact too, isn't it?

I mean, you never really kinda know what you're gonna get with glaze too?

- Absolutely, correct.

- It's a mystery, it's fun mystery.

- It's fun, it's read 'em and weep when you open the kiln.

- (laughs) Oh man.

Now you really were enjoying, I think, your eastern motif here.

- [Jack] Yeah.

- [Mark] These are, gosh, they're beautiful.

Look at, look at Don Quixote with windmills here.

Now, that is really really something.

- [Jack] And, and don't forget Sancho Panko on the side.

- Down on the right, uh huh.

(laughter) And what's that process called again?

With the wood?

- It's... - Saggar?

- Saggar fired.

- Saggar fired, okay.

Is this called a saggar?

- Yes.

- Is that what that is, okay.

All right, and then, is there a particular kind of wood that you put in there with it to make it, give it the blackness, or is it... - No, it could be chips of any sort.

- Okay.

You also, this, the glaze on this is really, really spectacular, and you got all different, different colored glazes.

How do you do that?

How do you get it to come out in bands like that?

- [Jack] Well, these are dipped and poured.

And then...

This was...

I must have waxed this, the only way I can think.

I poured it in here, and then dipped it in here, up to here, and then dipped it in this way.

- [Mark] Oh man.

- [Jack] It's all the way that you apply the glaze.

And I do most of mine in buckets of glaze, so that I can immerse it into the... - [Mark] You dip it more, you don't brush the glaze on, you dip it.

- [Jack] Right, in most cases.

Large pots, I might spray on.

- [Mark] The spray is kinda hard to control though, isn't it?

- [Jack] It's a little more difficult.

- [Mark] Yeah, and if you can dip it, the trouble is getting it, dipping it to an exact line, I guess, to where you get the line.

- [Jack] That's right.

- [Mark] This is a piece you're proud of too, and that's very pretty.

- [Jack] I like... Now these were made with common wood ash in the clays.

And wood ashes flux out the material in it.

And so...

I like this particular color that developed on this.

- Very nice.

I want to thank you and Hildegarde for letting us come in and showing us around.

I mean, on a day like this, when there's snow on the ground and you had other things to do, you were really nice to show us around.

Thanks so much.

- Well, you're quite welcome.

- Okay.

You know, since the 1860s to 1914, this was a very busy place for potters.

Jack and Hildegarde are the last ones here now, practicing this wonderful art.

But once or twice a year, they do have a sale.

And if you look around the Rushville Newspaper, or if you're lucky enough to get a postcard from them, some of these irreplaceable items are still for sale.

With another Illinois story in Ripley, I'm Mark McDonald.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] "Illinois Stories" is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

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