Lanier Meaders

Art Brokerage: Lanier Meaders American Folk Artist: b. 1917-1988. Lanier Meaders (Ga., 1917-1988) was born in Mossy Creek, Georgia. The third child of Arie and Cheever, Meaders infused his work with style and sculptural creativity. He continued the traditional ceramic craftsmanship in White County, Georgia, where stoneware was possibly in production as early as 1820. His grandfather, John Milton Meaders, opened the Meaders Pottery in 1893, employing his sons, Wiley, Caulder, Cleater, Cheever, and Casey, to assist hired local potters. Through these men the Meaders learned the basic techniques employed by Mossy Creek potters for over half a century—knowledge that passed to Lanier when his father, Cheever, took over the original family shop in 1920. By 1930, the Meaders were the last of the family potteries in Mossy Creek. When a Doris Ullman photograph of Cheever and his family was published in Allen Eaton Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands in the late 1930s, the demand for Meaders stoneware significantly changed from utilitarian wares to whimsies such as face jugs. Lanier became a full-time potter after his father's death in 1967, initially producing an order of face jugs for the Smithsonian Institution's first Festival of American Folklife. Although he continued to make household stoneware, these face jugs became his specialty. He and Arie were honored by the Library or Congress with a Meaders Pottery Day in 1978 and his face jugs are in the Smithsonian Institute. Listings wanted by Art Brokerage.