How Matisse became a name in pottery

As an apprentice to a potter, what Alex Matisse discovered shaped him like clay itself.  “When I walked in, I knew that this is what I was going to do,” he said. “We were told pots have skin and bones and skeletons and, like, a plate should have the fullness of the moon.”

Artful descriptions, much the way a painter might define their craft. In fact it was Henri Matisse who once said, “I don’t literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.” 

When Alex founded East Fork Pottery in Asheville, North Carolina, back in 2009, he took the same view. He saw ceramics as a canvas. It came easily, like it was woven into his DNA – because it was. Alex is the great-grandson of artist Henri Matisse.

I asked, “What did you know of your great-grandfather when you were growing up?”

“He was everywhere, kind of in the air that we breathed, around the house, on the walls,” Alex replied.

It was a famous last name he ran away from for years.  “I had a very grumpy relationship with it,” he laughed. “It was this kind of shadow thing that followed me around that I wanted to shake.”

Maybe it was stubbornness, or pride, but Alex was determined to make his own way. He convinced his soon-to-be-wife Connie to help him build a wood kiln on an old tobacco farm.

I asked, “Did she have the same passion for it that you did?”

“No. She didn’t have a passion for clay,” Alex said.

“But she had a passion for you, so she kept going?”

“Yeah. She stuck around,” he laughed.

And without anyone knowing who he really was, his business boomed. He could barely keep up with the demand. He realized, “If we’re gonna play in this world, something’s gotta change. Like, we cannot keep doing it like we did.”

So, he decided to mechanize, at least partially. The pottery was still his, only he thought better, especially the colors.  He was excited. “And we sent out a postcard of these new pots that look, you know, they were plain, they had colors on them,” he said. “And nobody showed up. So overnight, we lost almost every single one of our customers. Like, they had thought we had lost our minds.”

And yet, he still refused to fall back on the Matisse name, and it turned out that belief in himself paid off.

Today, he has legions of fans who call themselves “Potheads.” They buy, share and trade East Fork dinnerware online. On the secondary market, some of his early pieces can go for thousands of dollars.

And so, with East Fork firmly established, about 18 months ago Alex decided it was time to use his own name. He, along with his sister and brother, poured over hundreds of works by their great-grandfather to find the ones that could be pottery perfect.

“We wanted something like the Blue Nude series that was instantly recognizable,” Alex said. “But then, I wanted some that spoke to me a little more personally.”

Decals were made of the chosen works, faithful to their great-grandfather’s exacting details. Each one is carefully applied by hand, and inspected by hand over and over again.

He says he doesn’t wonder what his great-grandfather would think of his new collection. “Oh, geez. No.” Alex said, “Because he was very serious. He was so focused on his work. Like, that’s what he cared about.”

Henri Matisse once famously said, “Creativity takes courage.” His great-grandson Alex Matisse would certainly agree with that. His only caveat is that sometimes courage is all in the timing.

“There’s not a heaviness to it,” he said. “It’s just another layer. It’s just another interesting part of my history, my family’s history. And it feels great to celebrate it and share it.”

      
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Story produced by Kay Lim. Editor: Remington Korper.

       
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