Susy O’ Donnell
Creating Historic Pottery
Buren and Franklin Streets. They had a mini-factory and showroom there, but also sold their goods out of the Nashville House’ s gift shop— Brown County Folks Shop— where Spears Pottery is located today. Their work was sold in Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Chicago, and New York just a year after the business began. You can see a collection of the Griffiths’ s pottery next to the fireplace at the Brown County Library.
O’ Donnell’ s redware pottery, always evolving, presently includes many forms such as: bowls, dinnerware, canister sets, casserole dishes, sculptures, and other items. Like the Griffiths, she uses nature themes that appeal to visitors as a type of keepsake for a stay in Brown County. The motifs are seasonal with dogwood and flower patterns for spring, birds and bees for summer, persimmons and acorns in the fall, and deer, holly, or pine cones for winter.
She is proud to be continuing the tradition of the early potters and is interested in the area’ s unique art heritage. She recently made figurines of Ada Shulz, one of the early artists of the Brown County Art Gallery. She used the well-known Frank Hohenberger photo of Shulz holding a chicken and basket standing next to the Brown County character known as Grandma Barnes as inspiration.
Her pottery is currently for sale at the Brown County Art Guild, at the T. C. Steele State Historic Site, and Madeline’ s. You can also find her work at the annual Local Clay Potter’ s Guild show held at Bloomington’ s Convention Center every November. •
Jan./ Feb. 2016 • Our Brown County 41