2001 North Carolina Raku Pottery Vase

Seagrove, North Carolina, native Phil Morgan (1948-) is a well-known retired potter whose works are in the Smithsonian Museum. He established Phil Morgan Pottery in 1973 with his wife Julia Smith Morgan (1951-2019), also a talented potter, and he's been written about hundreds of times in magazines and newspapers. The Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, owns 120 of his pieces. Three of his pieces were featured in the book "North Carolina Pottery" published in 2004 (we've shown the page in one of our photos).

Phil Morgan made all his own porcelain and glazes by hand. The majority of his pottery was crystalline glazed, which makes the discovery of one of his elusive raku pieces like this vase a happy find. The sunny yellow background on this piece has one large cobalt blue swirl centered on the front and there are flecks of blue scattered about. The craquelure effect is quite striking on all sides and on the flared mouth. The unglazed base, charcoal colored from smoke, is inscribed "Phil Morgan 2001."

The vase is 6 inches tall, about 4 inches across the center with a 13 inch circumference. The mouth opening is 1 1/2 inches wide, with the base diameter 1 3/4 inches. The piece weighs 3/4 of a pound and is in excellent condition, with no cracks (except the intentional ones), no chips and no damage. It's a handsome piece of art pottery from a prominent American potter. 

>>>Fun fact about Phil Morgan: He's one of North Carolina's most frequent lottery winners, having won over 300 times. 

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