GEORGE OHR Salt dish covered in mottled raspberry glaze with green drip. Stamped G. E. OHR Biloxi Miss., and signed Mobile clay 1899. 3 1/4" x 3 1/2"

"This little vase is made primarily of Mobile clay which fires to a cream color. We once saw another vase, marked Ko op olis on the bottom,and it had a reddish body. It was important to potters to track such things because they understood that the right mixture of clay was all-important. One clay alone is seldom, if ever, sufficient to produce a pot. Where any one clay has deficiencies, such as a tendency to cracking, or lacks cohesiveness, or matures at too high or low a temperature, or is too red or too yellow - and especially if it lacks enough elasticity for throwing on the wheel - another clay or clays can be mixed with it to compensate for its shortcomings. First, finding the clay, and then determining the right proportions, necessitates constant experimentation. We will never know, but George Ohr may have begun his art of contortion by putting his clays to the test of his rigorous demands. The clays he mixed, that stretch and twist without tearing, that retain their character even when tissue-thin, are even more remarkable than his own ability as a thrower."