David Drake, also known as Dave the Potter, is perhaps America’s finest ceramicist and one of the earliest known African American poets, but until now, you could argue that he was not truly an artist.
Born into slavery around 1801 in South Carolina, Drake created monumental stoneware jars combining structural mastery with artistic beauty. Today, they are celebrated as among the most important achievements in American ceramics. But their most impressive feature is not their size, strength or even the ochre dripping glaze effect Drake mastered—it was what he wrote on them.
At a time when it was a crime in many states in the South to teach enslaved people to read or write, Drake defiantly inscribed his name and polysemous verses of poetry onto his jars. Each word he etched was an act of rebellion, a declaration that even though his body was in bondage, his spirit could not be silenced. Drake’s works are testaments to the complicated concatenation of captivity and creativity, of bondage and beauty.
And yet, while we rightly celebrate the talent and genius of Dave the Potter, the truth is that until now, he was not fully an artist.
Inalienable right
In societies throughout the world, a fundamental ideal of being an artist is the artist’s inviolable ownership of what he or she creates. The Berne Convention of 1886, an international treaty for the protection of artistic works, refers to the artist’s right of ownership and the right to benefit from such ownership as “inalienable”. It is the word Thomas Jefferson used in the Declaration of Independence to describe the rights the Creator had endowed people with. In other words, the right to own and derive benefit from the work an artist creates is sacred, just like the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. An essential part of being an artist then is not just the ability to create but also the right to control and benefit from the creation.
We hold the ideal of artists’ inalienable rights so strongly that bodies of laws and departments of government exist specifically to protect creators’ rights to the benefits that flow from what they create. We grant copyrights, trademarks and patents.
It is not that someone who makes art must realise monetary gain from their art or that art must have commercial value to be considered significant. Rather, an essential component of being an artist includes the right to control and decide the fate of their art. Art can be sold, held, given away for free or privately transferred, but it is the artist who makes that call (at least initially). The right to control the fate of what you create is fundamental to being an artist.
I am not sure whether Drake’s works, while he was alive, were considered works of art. The jars he created were utilitarian; many were used to store food and provisions for large numbers of enslaved persons. But even if Drake’s artistic talents were acknowledged during his lifetime, it would ring hollow to refer to Drake as an artist because he was denied the rights and benefits inextricably tied to being an artist. Someone else was able to reap the economic benefits of Drake’s skill and ingenuity. Drake would have been an artist in name only.
Recognition
A century and a half after his death, the art, academic and auction worlds have finally recognised and celebrated Drake’s brilliance and talent. His works began appearing in our most important museums and set auction records commanding six- and seven-figure prices. But the economic benefits associated with Drake’s works have accrued to auction houses, collectors and museums, expressly excluding and eluding Drake’s family. The wealth his art generated never flowed to the people who shared his blood. His descendants inherited the pride of his name, but not the profit of his hands. Drake’s jars were art, but it was only very recently that he became fully an artist.
When the Museum of Fine Arts Boston returned two of Drake’s jars to his heirs and invited his family to participate as beneficiaries of his legacy, it fulfilled Drake’s long-awaited destiny to become an artist—not just in name, but completely. The museum’s inspiring leadership reminds us that the gravitational pull towards justice is strong. The return of Drake’s works to his family demonstrates that museums can be both palaces of preservation as well as temples of repair.
Drake’s christening as an artist marks a beginning, not an end. Institutions and collectors who possess Drake’s works have an opportunity and privilege to continue to fulfil Drake’s identity as an artist and to consummate his descendants’ birthright as beneficiaries to his legacy. This is an opportunity to not just be on the right side of history, but to help rewrite it by turning ownership into stewardship, and stewardship into reparative justice. Through this engagement, we fulfil Drake’s identity as an artist, fully and finally.
- George Fatheree is an entrepreneur, attorney and activist. He represented Drake’s descendants in securing the return of two jars he created from the Museum of Fine Art, Boston
