Clay Artists Sewer Connection

C sent me this wonderful figure of a ram. She asked what it is, what they used it for, and who made it. It looks primitive, made of clay, glazed in brown. He suspects it’s a sewer tile, and he’s right. So, what’s a sewer tile? Did they use them to cap a sewer? No, artists who DID make those underground clay sewer pipe conduits made these, but after hours. They designed wonderful figures, and often competed with one another to outshine their fellow potters. Because at heart, they considered themselves clay artists. They made these as gifts to family members.

Ceramic artists who worked in the Midwest or Northeast clay sewer pipe factories did these whimsical designs for fun. Today some sell for quite a few bucks, because they’re rare and speak strongly of American Folk Art.

These figures originated from the clay sewer lines made, historically speaking, in England in 1810. The tradition of potters making clay sewer pipes came to the US from Scotland. John Johnson noticed clay made a great material for agricultural sewer lines. He brought the idea to his relative’s farm in upstate New York.

Clay Artists Made Pipes in Factories

Described today as Americana folk artists, potters fashioned figures built upon the round sections of the clay pipes either horizontally or vertically. They added molded figures and sometimes hand built clay figures in the shapes of dogs, crows, lions, sheep, owls, eagles, frogs, groundhogs, baseball players, and as we see, rams. Jack E Anderson wrote about them in his 1973 called the Illustrated handbook of Ohio Sewer Pipe Folk Art. C should look at this book, as he’ll see his RAM in there.

We see these figures of all manner selling at auction (Garth’s Auctions in Ohio sells these well) for up to $2,000.

By day factories produced clay sewer lines and by night clay figurines for personal gifting purposes in factories in Ohio, St Louis, Red Wing MN, and throughout Illinois and Indiana from 1880-1900. In some areas manufacturing clay pipes for sewers continued until 1950.

Clay Pipe History

The history of these sewer pipe figures ties in with the history of drainage. Sewers in the Indus valley 2500 BC were made of brick and mortar by Persians, Macedonians, and Minoans. Then the Greeks and Romans created sewer systems of brick and stone. Oh, the Middle Ages? Sanitation didn’t seem so important, until 1900 when it became an issue because of urbanization.

Philadelphia realized the problem first. They developed a sanitation system of wood pipes, in the stave style or in the hollowed out log style, then soon turned to clay pipes made of vitrified clay, clay with salt. Only major cities afforded such technology, or cities close to clay deposits. Some of our cities in the US still contain vestiges of the old wooden pipe system, such as Spokane, which found wooden pipes in use in 2018.

The journey to clay ran long, as many cities replaced wood pipes with cast iron pipes. By the late 19th and early 20th century cities preferred clay pipes. That’s when clay artists began to make sewer pipe figures in those factories. They created them from molds or hand applied to clay pipes of Redware or Stoneware clays. When the kilns closed due to new technology in sewer systems in the mid-20th century, those itinerant clay artists found work in factories that made clay pipes for agricultural systems. That’s why we see farm animals as favorite subjects for sewer tiles.

In England in the late 19th century clay artists made primitive looking figures in the region called Staffordshire. Influenced by those figures, American potters in factories that made agricultural clay pipes crafted figures resembling Staffordshire figures, but larger. They used hand modeling or hand casting to create wonderful figures. We see the tradition called COMBING on C’s figure of a ram, where the coat of the ram looks realistic. Figures were often simply glazed in salt glaze of a shiny brown, and some of these figures are signed. I put the value at $1,500.