Sheldon Kaganoff: US potter in Scotland

Here's one of my favourite pots: a large stoneware vase (about 43cm high), made by US potter Sheldon Kaganoff when he was based in Edinburgh in the early 1960s.



The pot was bought at an exhibition in the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh, for the mighty sum of £8 in June 1965. My mum made a living as a potter ([url=https://www.20thcenturyforum.com/t32496-joan-faithfull-nee-crawford-scottish-potter]) ; my dad was a biology teacher and amateur, but sometimes excellent, potter. He was part of Katie Horsman's Wednesday Night social/pot-making gatherings in the early 1960s, which were for invited attendees only. My poor mum was busy looking after me and my brother!  David Cohen, Jimmy Coull, Perpetua Pope, David Foggie, and Sheldon Kaganoff, and if they were visiting, Jim and Nan McKinnell were among others at these sessions.

This pot sat beautifully on the floor in the corner of the living room all my childhood, and somehow survived. My mum always liked to keep things in pots she liked: useful odds and sods, trinkets, or flowers, plants, twigs, feathers, or found things she liked.When she was older, she got a couple of plastic wireless bird-call door-chime things that looked like thrushes, and she nested them in the top of this pot. The pot is now mine, and I've kept the birds in it too. This is so her!

My parents also had a large stoneware plate by Sheldon Kaganoff, which is now in the National Museums of Scotland collections. But it's not as nice as this pot!

John