Above Edith and Converse Harwell firing the Pinewood Kiln, which still stands a the Eastern Shore Art Center in Fairhope. Image courtesy the Fairhope Museum of History
“We never really knew what Converse did,” Tom Jones said upon the mention of Edith and Converse Harwell. The couple started Pinewood Pottery in Fairhope in 1938 across from the Colony Cemetery on Section Street. Edith was Tom’s ceramics instructor at the School of Organic Education, but the couple immersed themselves in their community immediately upon arrival.
Converse was the first to take a turn at the potter’s wheel in North Carolina under Oscar Louis Bachelder, founder of Omar Khayyam Pottery. Around 1936, Edith knew she could do better. After success on her own, Edith was invited to the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, to set up a studio, make pottery and teach ceramics.
Converse built Edith’s wheel. In fact, he built two, and one is on display at the Fairhope Museum of History. Of the wheel, Edith said, “I could give a good kick and clean off a whole piece from the outside with that one kick.” A production potter, she went on to add, “I have made as many as 80 pansy bowls in one day.”
Edith wanted to move to New Orleans, which was where her sister Mary lived. She visited with aspirations of opening a studio and teaching ceramics in the Vieux Carre. Upon a return visit, after Converse had corresponded with Fairhope’s founder Ernest Gaston, they made a stop in the single tax enclave. They visited Henry Stuart, who Converse refers to as the “Tolstoyan Idealist.” Gaston introduced the couple to Marietta Johnson.
In a 1936 letter, Converse expresses “extreme interest” in the Organic School and writes Gaston, “For 20 years I’ve been dreaming of such a place as Fairhope.” Edith echoes this sentiment while reflecting in a 1982 interview with Mike Carman. The next summer, the couple demonstrated pottery at the school and stayed a week at the school home. “It was Mrs. Johnson and the sunsets over the Bay that brought us here.”
Looking back through the Fairhope Courier archives online, one can see early advertisements for Pinewood Pottery. Below Edith’s name is “Potter” and below Converse’s name is “Potter’s Husband.” This was a loving, creative partnership. As Edith tells it in 1982, he fully supported his wife’s effort from digging the clay out of the ground, preparing the clay, to mixing glazes and firing the kiln.
Shortly after settling here, Converse asked and received the okay from the Fairhope Town Council to build a kiln on city parkland. It’s still there today, tucked into the tree line, covered by a new tin roof. The kiln is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Once Converse got the okay to build the kiln, he went all over the Eastern Shore looking for brick. The first bricks he found were from the Fly Creek Kiln, which was built by a French settler around 1824 near the site of the Fairhope Yacht Club. He also drove over to Mobile and took the ferry and a wagon to Pinto Island. Once there, he would load up on bricks used for ship ballast.
Their resourcefulness knew no bounds, according to Jones. Edith and Converse would go out on a skiff after a heavy rain and get clay right out of the Bay. Jones shared this story while attaching handles to pitchers in his studio in Clay City, where he has been turning clay for more than five decades.
Pinewood Pottery was a stop on those early Eastern Shore Arts and Crafts tours. Edith would do live demos all day, and as she recalls that “locals didn’t buy, but the visitors they brought did.”
Converse and Edith Harwell and Henry Stuart in front of the entrance to Stuart’s roundhouse in 1936 at Tolstoy Park in Montrose. Edith Harwell at her wheel at Pinewood Pottery on Oak Street. Images courtesy of Fairhope Museum of History
If you ever find yourself at the Eastern Shore Art Center, you have the Harwells to thank. Their willingness to transfer over their single tax colony leasehold in 1961 to the Eastern Shore Art Association became the location of a dedicated art building in Fairhope, the Percy Whitting Art Center, now the Eastern Shore Art Center.
After transferring the property, the couple moved to 8 South Summit Street. Edith continued to teach and make pottery at the Organic School until 1971. The cottage still stands and is home to the University of South Alabama Baldwin County faculty. Converse continued to do what he always did. He mixed the glazes, fired, loaded, fired and emptied the kiln.
Jones said, “Edith wanted nothing to do with electric wheels.” They stayed in touch, and according to Jones he would stop by the Summit Street cottage with some beer, “and we’d pop a top or two.”
Edith’s Pottery, like that of Tom Jones, is highly collectable, especially if it has the Pinewood Pottery stamp with her initials.
When not helping Edith, Converse worked as a jack of all trades. Turns out he wasn’t just involved in single tax and the chamber of commerce. In 1946, he started writing a column for the Fairhope Courier: “Along the Eastern Shore with Harwell.”
Converse loved his adopted hometown. “I have found myself anticipating the return to Fairhope… long before reaching my planned destination.” It is evidenced in his writings. From exploring the Bay and its gullies, to enjoying the sunsets, to having civics discussions or visiting with Mary Heath Lee, Fairhope Librarian to look at “Fairhopeiana” scrapbooks and files, to his friendship with Henry Stuart, Converse’s passion for his town was contagious. Converse shared his thoughts, experiences, opinions and ideas with his community.
Edith was one of the earliest female potters in the Southeast to earn a living from her pottery. She influenced countless local artists. Converse gave Edith the most precious commodity for an artist: the time to create.
