Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Stoneware Race Cars

Note the raised head of a driver in a one-of-a-kind car
Iron Mountain Stoneware was located in Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee.  Many of the pieces of the stoneware wound up in private collections in nearby towns and small cities.  One such piece, this vehicle sculpture was artist signed by Kaneko--Jim Kaneko.  The auction company which dispersed articles from a Jonesborough, Tennessee estate sold this piece at auction.  Jim Kaneko was a professor from American River College in California and often tooks breaks to come visit as a guest artist with IMS.  The auction company listed this piece as depicting a man in a racing car with unusual Japanese style glaze decoration.  The car was 9" in length and 4.5" high. 
Note the artist's signature--"Kaneko" on the bottom 
Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. Laurel Bloomery residentJuly 4, 2015 at 6:39 PM

    Anyone know anything about wind chime pieces made by Iron Mountain Stoneware. I live near Laurel Bloomery and have 8 irregular but basically 3 " diameter round pieces of glazed flat pottery. Each piece has 2 holes about 1/2 inch in diameter. One has the letter g one has the number 3 another has the number 1 and other have abstract relief designs pressed into them. They are flat and glazed on one side only.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nancy LambJuly 22, 2017 at 3:00 PM

    Yes, I know the pieces you describe. When the plant began, these were made by the employees being trained. The number referred to a number given to the trainee, and the "g" was the initial of one of them. The employees learned to manipulate the clay. The pieces, strung together, were used as hanging downspouts from the plant roof. In winter they would be covered with cycles.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)