On March 31, 2010, I announced the Commeraw Project and told the modern world that Thomas W. Commeraw was not (as always assumed) a potter of White European descent, but in fact an important early African-American craftsman. I did this on crockerfarm.com, back when it had a vibrant and actively read Blog section. By announcing it there, I was able to have the ear of the entire American stoneware community, and my hope was that it would be as excited by the information as I was:
If you read this little article, you’ll see that I thought at the time that I’d be able to have my book completely rather soon. Twelve years later I finally released Commeraw’s Stoneware, but a lot of new research and ceramic discoveries happened over that period and I think for various reasons that its publication came at the right time.
I felt this look back at my original announcement was worth including here on the website as an important document of how Commeraw’s story unfolded.