FEBRUARY, 1951 35 CENTS - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

Members of the Evans family
of Boulder City, Nevada, have
created both a pleasant way of
life and a profitable small industry
by transplanting from the
Missouri Ozarks to the Southwest
desert an ancient craft.
Here is the story of how they
transform desert clay and natural
pigments into colorful handturned
pottery, utilizing a skill
handed down for generations
from father to son.
They Make
Pottery of
Desert Clay
By GENE SEGERBLOM
Photographs by Cliff Segerblom
1 walked into the work
shop of the Evans family in
Boulder City, Nevada, Dorothy
was busy at the potter's wheel, so engrossed
in her work that it was several
seconds before she glanced up.
She was engaged in one of the oldest
of crafts, hand-turning pottery, but the
Evans family has combined this ancient
skill with today's flair for the
unusual and colorful to build in Boulder
City, Nevada, one of the most
distinctive small industries in the desert
Southwest. They create Desert
Sands pottery. The actual craftsmen
of the family are Arthur, his son Ferrell
and his daughter, Dorothy Evans
Thurston.
The Evans pottery industry began
in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri
four generations ago. Hugh Evans,
Arthur's father, learned to turn the
potter's wheel from his father-in-law,
Tom Simmerman who had brought
the trade with him when he trekked
West from Georgia before the Civil
war. He settled at Crowley's Ridge in
the Ozarks in a log house by the side
of the road.
Indians told him where to find the
best clay in the hills and he soon had
a thriving business, supplying his neighbors
with the wares they needed for
FEBRUARY, 1951
Dorothy Evans Thurston turns out a vase on the potter's wheel.
household use. Eventually Hugh Evans
taught his skill to his son, Arthur,
and the latter, although still active,
has trained his son and daughter to
carry on his craftsmanship.
They came to Boulder City because
the hundreds of thousands of visitors
who come to Hoover dam every year
seemed to offer a good market for
their products.
To make their pottery the Evanses
use ordinary desert clay, and color it
with pigments of minerals mined in
the Arizona and Nevada hills—reds
from iron ore, grays from manganese,
blues from cobalt.
To obtain clay for their colorful pottery
the Evanses go to various old
mining camps at Chloride, Searchlight,
and to the Valley of Eire. The
clay must be aerated for at least 30
days, longer if possible, and a chemical
is added so it will hold the mineral
colors.
After it is properly aged, the color
pigments are added. Then lumps of
the different colored clays are weighed
to the desired sizes and squeezed or
wedged together. The pottery comes
from the wheel in beautiful blends of
reds, blues, browns and creams, each
with a different pattern.
The Evanses skillfully throw the
multi-colored hunk of clay on a wheel
which has been in the Evans family
four generations. The wheel is the
same type used by potters thousands
of years ago, but with a power motor
added—the only concession they make
to modernity.
Although it looks simple, Arthur
Evans says it requires some skill to
keep the spinning wet clay in the center
of the wheel where it must be, if
the pot is to be symmetrical.
As the wheel revolves, the clay is
coaxed into the desired form by what