NORTHFIELD — Potter Tom White removed dozens of freshly fired commemorative items for Northfield’s 350th anniversary from the kiln at his Winchester Road studio on a recent Monday morning.
Joining him for the reveal were Stacy Bond, chair of the 350th Anniversary Committee, and Joan Stoia, a member of the committee’s fundraising arm. According to a press release from Stoia, each piece of blue decorated New England stoneware bearing the anniversary logo is hand-stamped, signed and just a little different from the others, just as they would have been in the late 1700s.
White, who is knowledgeable about 17th- and 18th-century pottery, began working on the design of the Northfield pieces in January, after Bond approached him based on a similar project he completed for Whately’s anniversary.
“I liked the idea of collaborating with someone who has been in the community for over 40 years and is well-known for his craft,” Bond said in the release.
Using a logo designed by local artist Michael LaCoy, who won the anniversary logo design contest last fall, White produced a small number of samples for consideration.
“The moment I pressed the mold that I made from the logo into the clay, I knew the pieces would have the historic feel I was aiming for,” White recounted in the release.
To produce the numbers needed for a first run, White had help from Pearson Franz, a junior at Four Rivers Charter Public School in Greenfield and daughter of Greenfield Recorder photographer Paul Franz, who spent a week-long internship at the studio applying the cobalt blue glaze to the raised logo medallions that White would later apply to the surface of each piece. The pots were dried and glazed in May.
White then introduced salt into the kiln in the same way as the early American potters before him. According to White, the salt turns to vapor and is carried across the pots by the flames, creating a glass-like coating. This process is responsible for the variations on the surfaces that make each pot unique.
“Glazing at the high temperatures ensures that traditional stoneware is impervious to liquids,” he explained in the release. “Unlike terra cotta pieces, you can put a stoneware mug filled with hot or cold beverages on a table and never leave a ring.”
Furthermore, White said, once fired in this way, the pieces never disintegrate, which has helped archeologists who find fragments understand cultures dating back 1,000 years or more.
Bond said she hopes to see the pottery and all of the anniversary items — including bags, hats and other items bearing the distinctive logo — go on sale during the summer of 2022 to build excitement leading up to the anniversary year. More than 50 residents entered a contest to win one of the four original commemorative items produced for the 350th Anniversary Committee’s review. The four winners were Ed Bundas, Jenny Tufts, Robert Lauwers and Bruce Kaeppel, all of Northfield.
For more information, visit northfield350.org.