Mary Curtin with a Queen Anne's lace patterned basket (photo by David Grace)
Mary Curtin creates beautiful, delicate, handmade stoneware baskets with a nature theme and has for more than 30 years.
It all started because of her friendship with a neighbor, Sharon Jackson. Jackson had a ceramic bowl that Curtin admired. Jackson volunteered to teach Curtin how to make one.
“So we went out in her backyard, and we started making it. Sharon looked over at her garden and said ‘We could put herbs in it,” and that’s what we did. We just had fun playing in the mud and one day we realized we could put a handle on it, and it would be a basket,” Curtin says.
She’s been making and selling her baskets since then. For many years, Curtin and Jackson were partners, but Jackson moved away and the logistics of carrying on a business separated by 500 miles became too much.
Her baskets are individually handmade. She uses coils and slabs of clay in the press mold technique. The clay is pressed into a mold, which is anything that has the shape Curtin wants the final basket to have. It could be a bowl or a small box. Herbs, leaves and wildflowers are pressed into the wet clay prior to firing in a kiln. The foliage burns away leaving an imprint in the clay. She then dips them in a slip, which she describes as similar to ‘antiquing.’ When it is rubbed off, it enhances the details imprinted in the clay.
One of Curtin’s favorite patterns to use is dogwood flowers.
“Two years ago, when the pandemic started and the dogwood started blooming, I go out like an idiot and start making all these dogwood baskets. The shows were canceled, but I was entertaining myself playing with my pottery. This year when the dogwood started blooming, I slapped my hand and only made a few, because I still had all those from last year in my garage,” she says.
This year, she’ll make her usual appearance at The Virginia Highlands Festival arts and crafts market. She recalls that one year her tent was on the lawn across from the Martha Washington Inn.
“I sold pieces of pottery over the fence to people who were going to Barter Theatre. They’d asked to see a piece, and I’d pass it over the fence. They’d buy it, I’d keep it and they’d pick it up after the show,” she says.
She has many people who come back to her tent at craft fairs year after year and ask ‘What’s new?” They are looking for a new shape or a new pattern to add to their collection of her pottery. Some even convinced her to add non-baskets to her offerings. She now makes egg trays and trays.
New patterns in her collection come from experience and trial and error. She’s learned that a pansy flower doesn’t work at all because it doesn’t have veins. “A money plant leaf works well because you can see the veins. Queen Anne’s Lace does well. Rosemary, sage and curly parsley also work well,” she says.
She’s continued to ply her craft for so long because “It’s just fun making them, and I meet wonderful people from all over the world,” Curtin says.
The baskets are often used as containers for flowers, potpourris, soap, towels, snack foods and kitchen utensils. Since they are handmade, no two are ever alike. They are unglazed, so are somewhat porous. Because of their high firing temperature, they are durable and can be cleaned with soap and water.
Her baskets can be purchased at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum Store, Bristol, Virginia, at the Virginia Highlands Festival in Abingdon, Virginia (July 22-31) and at The Craftsman’s Fair in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, (Oct. 13-30).
