Untitled19989 x 10 x 6 " (22.9 x 25.4 x 15.2 cm)CeramicGift of Judith Alexander2000.11.10opening designed like the body of a seraphic woman, supine over a scene of angels below15410327522011.1Georgia BlizzardContainersCopyright for this work is under review. underside: 'ON yondeR disTANT / Knoll. / Daisies bow To The / bReeze / EVeNING SUN IS SeTTING / The Lonesome Dove / Coos fRom The Trees. / Shadows Pull down The / CuRTIAN of TIIME. / Perhaps YOURSUNSET / OR Maybe iTs MINe. / "CoRPS, "CORPS" does The / RAVIN CAll. / TheN TWIlighT TAKes oveR. / ITS, all, its all.'underside: 'Georgia Blizzard / 98'http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24578Mourning UrnMourning UrnMourning UrnGlade SpringGlade SpringUnited StatesVirginiaThree Dimensional WorksGlade SpringEarth and clay have provided Virginia artist Georgia Blizzard with joy and solace throughout her life. As a little girl, she made clay toys with one of her older sisters, Lucy May and “fired” them in the sun. As young women, they made fake Indian relics—pots and pipes and the like—and sold them to provide funds for their families. Blizzard married at the age of twenty-one and became a widow fourteen years later. To provide for her family, she worked in a factory and a textile plant before returning to ceramics and creating a wide array of sculptural vessels in her maturity. Her daughter, Mary, opened a shop, creating an opportunity to share Blizzard’s objects with the public.
The artist comes from a classic American family with roots in three diverse cultures – Apache, Irish, and Appalachian. A respect for God and nature and a “can-do” approach to living consumes Blizzard’s life and art. When she was a child, she was taught traditional Native American firing techniques by her father. Today, she uses both a coal kiln (for colorful surface) and an electric kiln (to prevent breakage), but she still gets her clay from the creek behind her home. She does not make functional objects. Rather, her vessels provide the “canvas” for Blizzard to convey her deepest emotion. The octogenarian artist, who has lost many loved ones, explores the dark, rugged landscape of loneliness through her art. Her sculptures speak of grief, salvation, and love.
The opening of Mourning Urn is the abdomen of a large woman, legs spread around the gaping entry. Decorating the four sides of the vessel are angels trumpeting horns and picking flowers as well as an Annunciation scene, Blizzard is a published poet –interestingly, some of the artist’s most devoted collectors are poets –and on the bottom of the Mourning Urn, this poem of death is incised in the day:
On yonder distant Shadows pull down the
Knoll curtains of time.
Daisies bow to the Perhaps it’s your sunset
Breeze. Or maybe its mine.
Evening sun is setting. “Corps,” “corps” does the
The Lonesome Dove Ravin call.
“coos” from the trees. Then Twilight Takes over.
Its, all, It’s all.”
Brooke Davis Anderson, "Mourning Urn," in Stacy C. Hollander, American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 403.Georgia Blizzard was a sculptor in clay who came from an American family with roots in three diverse cultures: Apache, Irish, and Appalachian. When Blizzard was a child she was taught Native American firing techniques by her father. She made clay toys with one of her older sisters, Lucy May, and baked them in the sun. As young women, the two sisters made imitation Indian relics—pots and pipes and the like—and sold them to unsuspecting tourists as authentic objects. Returning to ceramics later in life, Blizzard created a wide array of non-functional sculptural vessels—even if created in the form of a vase or a pitcher.
Blizzard is a published poet—interestingly, some of the artist's most devoted collectors are poets—and on the bottom of Mourning Urn is her poem articulating the story of death incised in the clay:
On yonder distant
knoll
Daisies bow to the
breeze.
Evening sun is setting
The Lonesome Dove
coo
Shadows pull down the
curtains of time
Perhaps it
Or maybe its mine.
Ravin call.
Then Twilight Takes over,
Its, all, Its all."
Brooke Davis Anderson, "Mourning Urn," exhibition label for Folk Art Revealed. Stacy C. Hollander and Brooke Davis Anderson, curators. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2004.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgreviewed by Art Bridges Fellow 2026 Austin Losada for the IMLS Neurodiversity ProjectpotteryGeorgia Belle Blizzard had the "feel of the clay." She dug it from the banks of the muddy creek behind the home her father had built in the 1930s. She purified it, shaped it, and gave birth to anthropomorphic vessels that she fired using the traditional methods to burn and harden the clay that she had learned as a child. She was the daughter of Apache and Irish blood, in touch with nature and with deeper elements that emerged in her clay sculptures exploring themes of suffering, yearning, flesh and spirit.
Blizzard was born in Statesville, Poor Valley, Virginia, but moved to Plum Creek in Glade Spring, Virginia, as a child. Too poor to afford store-bought toys, she and her sister May fashioned dolls and other playthings from the native clay. She attended school through the eighth grade, married at the age of twenty-one, and was widowed by thirty-five, with a daughter to raise. Blizzard worked in a munitions factory during World War II, and then in a textile mill until she suffered a health crisis, losing one lung. In the 1970s, living with her daughter and granddaughter in the family home in Plum Creek, she started using the clay that was second nature to her to start "…making art about things I felt. I got to thinking more about spiritual things than I did when I was younger. I got more interested in making pieces about something that’s touched me—something that makes me happy or makes me sad." At first, she used a simple coal kiln, built by a friend, whose flames licked and burnt and darkened the clay in places, glazing the pieces with coal, wood, leaves, rubber scraps, cow dung. Later, she received an electric kiln, and she continued to use both.
This rectangular mourning urn, an ode to death, is a somber object, burnt and writhing with figures of angels, men, and women. The wide mouth on top eviscerates an angel whose wings are spread and flattened, allowing the Holy Spirit to empty or fill the vessel. The bottom is incised with a poem written by the artist, who was also a published poet:
On yonder distant
knoll
Daisies bow to the
breeze.
Evening sun is setting
The Lonesome Dove
coo
Shadows pull down the
curtains of time
Perhaps it
Or maybe its mine.
Ravin call.
Then Twilight Takes over,
Its, all, Its all."
Stacy C. Hollander, "Mourning Urn, 1998" exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orghttp://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24578Mourning UrnMourning UrnMourning UrnMourning Urnhttp://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24578http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster245782011.119981998 2000 11 1 Earth and clay have provided Virginia artist Georgia Blizzard with joy and solace throughout her life. As a little girl, she made clay toys with one of her older sisters, Lucy May and “fired” them in the sun. As young women, they made fake Indian relics—pots and pipes and the like—and sold them to provide funds for their families. Blizzard married at the age of twenty-one and became a widow fourteen years later. To provide for her family, she worked in a factory and a textile plant before returning to ceramics and creating a wide array of sculptural vessels in her maturity. Her daughter, Mary, opened a shop, creating an opportunity to share Blizzard’s objects with the public.
The artist comes from a classic American family with roots in three diverse cultures – Apache, Irish, and Appalachian. A respect for God and nature and a “can-do” approach to living consumes Blizzard’s life and art. When she was a child, she was taught traditional Native American firing techniques by her father. Today, she uses both a coal kiln (for colorful surface) and an electric kiln (to prevent breakage), but she still gets her clay from the creek behind her home. She does not make functional objects. Rather, her vessels provide the “canvas” for Blizzard to convey her deepest emotion. The octogenarian artist, who has lost many loved ones, explores the dark, rugged landscape of loneliness through her art. Her sculptures speak of grief, salvation, and love.
The opening of Mourning Urn is the abdomen of a large woman, legs spread around the gaping entry. Decorating the four sides of the vessel are angels trumpeting horns and picking flowers as well as an Annunciation scene, Blizzard is a published poet –interestingly, some of the artist’s most devoted collectors are poets –and on the bottom of the Mourning Urn, this poem of death is incised in the day:
On yonder distant Shadows pull down the
Knoll curtains of time.
Daisies bow to the Perhaps it’s your sunset
Breeze. Or maybe its mine.
Evening sun is setting. “Corps,” “corps” does the
The Lonesome Dove Ravin call.
“coos” from the trees. Then Twilight Takes over.
Its, all, It’s all.”
Brooke Davis Anderson, "Mourning Urn," in Stacy C. Hollander, American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 403.Georgia Blizzard was a sculptor in clay who came from an American family with roots in three diverse cultures: Apache, Irish, and Appalachian. When Blizzard was a child she was taught Native American firing techniques by her father. She made clay toys with one of her older sisters, Lucy May, and baked them in the sun. As young women, the two sisters made imitation Indian relics—pots and pipes and the like—and sold them to unsuspecting tourists as authentic objects. Returning to ceramics later in life, Blizzard created a wide array of non-functional sculptural vessels—even if created in the form of a vase or a pitcher.
Blizzard is a published poet—interestingly, some of the artist's most devoted collectors are poets—and on the bottom of Mourning Urn is her poem articulating the story of death incised in the clay:
On yonder distant
knoll
Daisies bow to the
breeze.
Evening sun is setting
The Lonesome Dove
coo
Shadows pull down the
curtains of time
Perhaps it
Or maybe its mine.
Ravin call.
Then Twilight Takes over,
Its, all, Its all."
Brooke Davis Anderson, "Mourning Urn," exhibition label for Folk Art Revealed. Stacy C. Hollander and Brooke Davis Anderson, curators. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2004.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgreviewed by Art Bridges Fellow 2026 Austin Losada for the IMLS Neurodiversity ProjectpotteryGeorgia Belle Blizzard had the "feel of the clay." She dug it from the banks of the muddy creek behind the home her father had built in the 1930s. She purified it, shaped it, and gave birth to anthropomorphic vessels that she fired using the traditional methods to burn and harden the clay that she had learned as a child. She was the daughter of Apache and Irish blood, in touch with nature and with deeper elements that emerged in her clay sculptures exploring themes of suffering, yearning, flesh and spirit.
Blizzard was born in Statesville, Poor Valley, Virginia, but moved to Plum Creek in Glade Spring, Virginia, as a child. Too poor to afford store-bought toys, she and her sister May fashioned dolls and other playthings from the native clay. She attended school through the eighth grade, married at the age of twenty-one, and was widowed by thirty-five, with a daughter to raise. Blizzard worked in a munitions factory during World War II, and then in a textile mill until she suffered a health crisis, losing one lung. In the 1970s, living with her daughter and granddaughter in the family home in Plum Creek, she started using the clay that was second nature to her to start "…making art about things I felt. I got to thinking more about spiritual things than I did when I was younger. I got more interested in making pieces about something that’s touched me—something that makes me happy or makes me sad." At first, she used a simple coal kiln, built by a friend, whose flames licked and burnt and darkened the clay in places, glazing the pieces with coal, wood, leaves, rubber scraps, cow dung. Later, she received an electric kiln, and she continued to use both.
This rectangular mourning urn, an ode to death, is a somber object, burnt and writhing with figures of angels, men, and women. The wide mouth on top eviscerates an angel whose wings are spread and flattened, allowing the Holy Spirit to empty or fill the vessel. The bottom is incised with a poem written by the artist, who was also a published poet:
On yonder distant
knoll
Daisies bow to the
breeze.
Evening sun is setting
The Lonesome Dove
coo
Shadows pull down the
curtains of time
Perhaps it
Or maybe its mine.
Ravin call.
Then Twilight Takes over,
Its, all, Its all."
Stacy C. Hollander, "Mourning Urn, 1998" exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org