In 2023, we loaned two Commeraw oyster jars and one large fragment of a Commeraw pot to the New York Historical Society for an exhibit celebrating the work of black potter Thomas Commeraw. The description below is taken directly from the NYHS website.
Crafting Freedom: The Life and Legacy of Free Black Potter Thomas W. Commeraw is the first exhibition to bring overdue attention to a skilled craftsman whose racial identity was long overlooked. Born enslaved, Commeraw rose to prominence as a free Black entrepreneur, owning and operating a successful pottery. Over a period of two decades, Commeraw amassed property, engaged in debates over state and national politics, and participated in the life of New York City’s free Black community. The exhibition explores Commeraw’s multi-faceted history—as a craftsman, business owner, family man, and citizen.
Crafting Freedom presents more than 20 stoneware jars and jugs produced by Commeraw’s pottery between the late 1790s and 1819 alongside examples by his contemporaries, exploring the production, decoration, and markings of these beautiful utilitarian forms. The potter’s personal, political, and civic activity come alive through other artifacts, newspaper clippings, broadsides, books, and documents, including a certificate of freedom bearing Commeraw’s signature and first-hand accounts of his fraught journey to Sierra Leone with the American Colonization Society.
For this show, I made a batch of pickled oysters using a modern adaption of a traditional recipe and placed them into an oyster jar made by potter Mark Shapiro.
