Mug

Harriet Joor (decorator)
Joseph Meyer (potter)
Newcomb College Pottery

1903

5 5/8 inches (h)

Glazed earthenware

2024.16.1

Gift of Barbara Fuldner

On base: impressed "NC" monogram, filled with blue; impressed "Q" (for buff colored body); impressed conjoined "JM" (for Joseph Meyer); incised conjoined "HJ" for Harriet Joor. Painted in blue: Conjoined "HJ" for Harriet Joor; date code "Y29"

Harriet Joor was an exceptional woman whose life and pursuits seem to defy classification. Throughout various roles at various points in her life–as author, educator, pottery decorator, designer, and homesteader–the unifying thread was always a return to the restorative power of craft and a belief in the value of educating others about it. Joor first rose to prominence while working at Newcomb Pottery as a decorator. Influenced by the teachings of Arthur Wesley Dow, with whom she studied in 1900, she had a natural eye for the types of strong, simple designs seen in this mug. By 1905, she was writing for Gustav Stickley’s magazine The Craftsman and providing him with textile designs, even as she taught pottery in Chicago. Plagued by poor health, she finally moved out West on the recommendation of her doctors but while they may have envisioned a rest cure she defied expectations and instead became a homesteader in South Dakota. By 1923, she was teaching art at Southwestern Louisiana Institute of Liberal and Technical Learning, in Lafayette. Despite concerns about her health, Joor lived until the age of 90, almost long enough for a new generation of enthusiasts to rediscover and appreciate the work that had dominated her early life.