Charles Counts Papers

Charles Counts (1934-2000) was born in Lynch, Harlan County, Kentucky, and raised in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  In 1952, Counts returned to Kentucky to attend Berea College where he studied art and began his career as a potter.  He later earned a MFA in pottery and design from Southern Illinois University in 1957, and underwent apprentice training under Marguerite Wildenhain and advanced work in ceramic technology with Carlton Ball, Susan Peterson, and George James at the University of Southern California.  Although trained as a potter, Counts was also a weaver, teacher, and writer.

After serving in the US Army, Counts would return to Oak Ridge to open Beaver Ridge Pottery and later the Pottery Shop in Rising Fawn, Georgia. Along with his wife Rubynelle Waldrop, also a Berea graduate (1955), Counts ran a production and training center in Rising Fawn, on Lookout Mountain, that for 25 years turned out pots, potters, and quilts. Counts served as an advisor for the American Crafts Council and the Georgia Council for the Arts, and was a member of the U.S. delegation to the World Crafts Council in Mexico City in 1976.  Counts was also heavily involved with the Southern Highland Craftsman’s Guild Fair. a prolific writer whose articles frequently appeared in Crafts Horizons and other publications, Counts authored many books including Common Clay (1971) and Pottery Workshop (1976) and taught around the world—influencing hundreds of modern ceramicists.

Counts’ artwork has been purchased for numerous private and public collections including the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Berea College, the Reece Museum, Oak Ridge Art Center, the Smithsonian, and the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. He received the Georgia Governor's Award in 1973 and was named a Fellow of the American Craft Council in 1995. In 1972, after hearing famed British potter Michael Cardew speak about his time in Africa where technological advancement had not interrupted simple traditional practices and values, Charles Counts made his first trip to Nigeria. Six months later, Counts and his family were in Nigeria and, shortly thereafter, he accepted a position in the Art Department at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria.  Counts continued teaching at the University for 28 years. In 1985, his marriage to Rubynelle Waldrop ended. On one of Counts trips back to the States he met graphic artist and designer Hedi Bak, whom he married in 1990. Counts later accepted a full-time professorship at the University of Maduiguri, in Borno State, Nigeria, and the couple moved there permanently with occasional visits to the U.S. to visit friends and family. Counts died in Nigeria in 2000 from complications of malaria.