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For her part, Arie Meaders has not been constrained in her work
by any particular notions of traditional versus nontraditional ware.
Never an active participant in the older industry (even though she was
clearly influenced by the work of her husband, son, and their male coworkers),
Arie was free to experiment widely in creating her novel art
pottery. The fact that her active period from 1957 until 1969 coincided
widi the growth of a collectors' market for "folk-art" doubdess added
further impetus to such experimentation (fig. 43).
At first, Arie fashioned simple wall planters —objects which to her
had an important function in the home. Finding success widi diese,
she graduated to making decorated jars, platters, sugar bowls,
creamers, mugs, and clay pipe bowls. A clay menagerie of partly
turned, partly hand-built pheasants, owls, roosters, quail, and
chickens are among her best-known forms. Cheever even allowed his
wife to embellish some of his tall vases.
Arie would begin work by carefully cleaning her clay of pine bark,
pebbles, sticks, and other matter—a fastidiousness foreign to Cheever.
Figure 43c. Decorated vases turned by Lanier, circa 1964. Bristol Glaze and chrome
oxide.