Capturing History in the Living Museum
To photograph in the Gladding, McBean pottery is almost to be transported in time to the turn of the 20th century. The production of architectural terra cotta continues virtually unchanged to this day in this 134-year-old factory at the foot of the gold rush foothills in the Placer County town of Lincoln, California. The stacks of red clay pipe surrounding the plant belie the fact that much of the decorative cladding of historic California buildings was created inside the wood-frame walls of these old buildings.
Photography played an important role in the manufacture of architectural terra cotta at Gladding, McBean. Pictures were made with a large-format camera and sent to clients for approval and/or changes. The collection of these negatives, numbering more than 10,000, is now safely stored at the California State Library in Sacramento, thanks in large part to the diligent efforts and caring curatorship of Mary Swisher, a Sacramento photographer. Swisher herself spent 10 years photographing the pottery and produced a body of work that wonderfully complements the early glass-plate images. Together they provide the definitive visual description of a century of industrial craftsmanship, as practiced at Gladding, McBean.
My own photographic journey into the Gladding, McBean pottery grew out of Feats of Clay, the unique national juried ceramics exhibition sponsored by the Lincoln Arts and Culture Foundation and presented inside the Gladding McBean factory every year. As a volunteer docent, I began by making a few publicity photos of the plant. In that brief encounter, the place grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. It was impossible not to be moved by the extraordinary light in the buildings, as well as by the fragments of California history tucked into every part of this living museum. On the other hand, I was a landscape photographer, unaccustomed to the blazing contrasts, dimly lit spaces, and the enforced intimacy of corners literally jammed with compelling subject matter. In spite of these difficulties, I knew I had to take pictures in this utterly remarkable place.
Feats of Clay opened the doors of Gladding, McBean to the outside world, revealing, for the first time even to many locals, the workplace where some of the most beautiful architectural ornamentation in California's history had been, and continued to be, crafted by local workers out of the abundant local clay. And although they are not present in my photographs, it is the workers themselves who make what happens at the pottery so extraordinary. As we hurtle into the new millennium, factories are becoming more and more automated, more and more dependent on technology. Gladding, McBean's architectural products are still crafted by hand, almost exactly the same way they were a hundred years ago, on the same wooden floors, in the same light and dust, moved around on many of the same antique carts.
I would like to express my gratitude to Bill Padavona, Jerry Stacy, and the other management and staff of Gladding, McBean for their generosity and cooperation in allowing me and other photographers to work in the pottery over the last 14 years as participants of the Gladding McBean Photography Workshops (see Workshops).
