TulaneLSU's Top 10 pieces at Biloxi’s George Ohr Museum

Dear Friends,

“Pottery makes a woman worthy, a man humble, and a child attentive. It is one of man’s highest pursuits and most ancient.” Grandmother is passionate about pottery and she is a natural talent. But make no mistake: it was through years of trial and error, creation and destruction and then creation again on the potter’s wheel that she became a world class potter.

Grandmother attended Newcomb shortly after women were allowed to throw clay on the wheel. Just a decade before her time there, it was thought to be unbecoming of the Newcomb girls to touch the clay. She lived through the Newcomb revolution, that period after World War II when Newcomb Pottery and its ornate design fell out of favor for the plain and utilitarian Newcomb Guild pottery. It was short lived, but its effect on her and the family has been profound.

“Be brief; be functional; be plain, TulaneLSU. You must work on all three,” she often said to me after proofreading my daily writing exercise. While other children were watching TV after finishing their homework, I was busy upstairs writing, hoping to write something worthy of Grandmother’s praise. On some frustrating evenings, it would take two hours to produce one paragraph worthy of her approval.

Grandmother teaches that each person must learn to discipline his mind, body, and heart. The body is the easiest to discipline; all it takes is healthy eating and physical labor. “Rejecting the sins of the flesh is the easiest and most basic of our spiritual disciples,” she says. “The simplest of men can tame the body if he tries.”

The mind is next, and its discipline comes from words: their appropriate use and meaning. I spoke to her last night, “Grandmother, I am going to share with our friends on the OT a story about George Ohr. I want them to know why you care so much about words.”

Grandmother responded, “Hard, perhaps impossible, is it to have a pure heart if a man cannot apply rules of grammar or choose appropriate language. Mind and mouth must meet only after thorough thought and training. Words bring meaning to life. Words form our relationships. Words shape our memories. Words are life. God revealed himself to us as Word – ‘In the beginning was the Logos, the Word.’ We are a people of the Word and of words; they are God’s gift to us. When the words are right, the mind is right.”

The most difficult discipline, Grandmother taught me, is that of the heart. Its discipline presupposes a discipline of body and mind, and it only comes by grace through prayer and acts of self-denying love. Willingly to give up one’s comfort, one’s happiness, even one’s life is the ultimate taming of the heart. Although open to all, few achieve this discipline.

Grandmother really is something else, and those of you who have met her know how blessed you are. As she grows more and more frail, I cherish her words and our memories together more and more.

One of the most striking, if not embarrassing, memories with her comes from the summer of my ninth year of life. I was satisfied to tend to Grandfather’s June tomato garden, but Grandmother thought my hands were idle. She enlisted Sister and me in a calligraphy class with one of her Newcomb chums.

An afternoon thunderstorm made our walk to class wet. We walked up those creaky wooden steps to enter a Classic Revival on State Street. Perhaps some of you remember this house from art classes you may have attended. We walked through to the backyard studio where this lady, who I call Ms. Calligraphy, spent her days womaning the potter’s wheel.

She sat us down at small desks and had us read aloud a list of calligraphy rules scribbled on her writing board. “Rule one, I will use calligraphy to make beautiful words. Rule two, I will respect the pen and its power. Rule three, I will obey my teacher.”

Grandmother was with us, but she had slipped behind us to one of the two potter’s wheels in the back. She was sitting upright, lost in her thoughts, but rather than spinning the wheel, she was applying engobe to a large plate bisque. We later learned that Grandmother was making us a Christmas cookie platter for Santa. That platter is now one of our family’s most cherished Christmas decorations.



With Grandmother lost in her thoughts, we were left to learn from Ms. Calligraphy. She was short and slim. A native of Charleston, her accent was distinctly Southern genteel. She wore her salt and pepper hair in a bun and her teeth were perfectly white, in a time before teeth whitening. Her skin was the color of Blue Plate mayonnaise, even more fair than mine, but without the awful smell. She wore diamond earrings in the shape of crosses.

I hated those earrings. To use the sacred to adorn her blemished lobes blazed a porcelain’s fire in the kiln of my heart. Nevertheless, I would say nothing because I knew Grandmother was listening.

Ms. Calligraphy taught us the alphabet with zest and sprite. An hour into it, Sister was on her way to becoming the American Huang Tingjian. I was not. My letters were jumbled and my lines as crooked as a superior who has an affair with her bodyguard, is found out, and then later hires him back to the same position. Or you could say as straight as Larry Leo’s road to God.

My frustration grew. Although I am no stranger to failure, my failure in front of Grandmother was humiliating. I stood up and quoted John Talbot, one of my favorite Shakespeare characters, “My thoughts are whirled like a potter’s wheel. I know not where I am nor what I do.” I threw my calligraphy pen across the room, the last time I would ever hold such a pen, and ran out to hide behind the trunk of a large live oak in the backyard.

Grandmother gave chase. She did not suffer a grumbler and said to me, “TulaneLSU, obstinance and impertinence are not of our family. You will seek Ms. Calligraphy’s pardon at once.” And I did.

Grandmother returned to me holding her Bible, as I waited in the garden while Sister finished her lesson. I had not yet come to carry my triune travel partners of Bible, 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, and scale, so it was good she had it with her.

“TulaneLSU,” as she wiped away a tear, “Do not be so hard on yourself. We are all clay – dirty, lifeless, senseless. Yet this clay we are, in God’s hands, becomes beautiful art. Even when we fail, God puts his hands around us and shapes us anew. St. Paul puts it this way: ‘In Christ, we are new creations. The old has passed and the new is here.’ Let go of your frustration and let God mold and use you.”



She then read from Jeremiah 18, recalling that the clay is Israel and the potter is God. When creation is not good, God will reform and recreate it. “You see, TulaneLSU, God does not quit on us because we fail or sin. While we were still sinners, yes, while we were still sinners, God loved us in the Cross.”

That was one of the pivotal conversations in my life. We all have them, some good and some bad, but Grandmother taught me a lesson that afternoon I have not forgotten. May we ever have the same influence on someone’s life.