The Gingersnap Pottery Reclamation Project

“It started in the living room, one kiln on the porch. That was around 1980 I think. I remember Mongee calling me to ask if I would come take the carpet out of the living room. My response was, “Does Dad know about this?””

So goes the first bit my dad has given me for this website.

Gingersnap Pottery was a pottery business run primarily in the 1980s by my late grandmother, who we called Mongee. She was a fierce, independent woman who was always creating, always making things. In her late 40s, she earned her bachelor’s degree in ceramics from Syracuse University, and went on to run her own business and studio.

Some of my earliest memories are of the glow of the kilns in the back of the barn she built her store and workshop in, of her sitting at her wheel and spinning clay into art.

I got an itch a few years ago now and decided to see if anyone was selling any of her pottery pieces on the internet. The first piece I tracked down was on eBay, and it sparked an endless search for her pottery on a variety of websites, from eBay to etsy to Mercari and more. I acquire a few things a year this way, and have been slowly building a collection. A few things I have lost out on because other buyers have snatched them up sometimes minutes or hours before I have a chance to; others have arrived to me broken, victims of the danger of shipping pottery across distances. As I write this, a particularly heavy piece is on its way to my parents house for my father to watch over for me until I can retrieve it in the future, because the shorter shipping distance lessened the danger to the pottery.

Every time I purchase a piece online, I send the seller a message explaining that my late grandmother made the item(s) and often I’ve gotten responses asking for more information about her. I’ve told a few people over the last few years that I was intending on launching a blog or website about her pottery, and this is that finally happening.

In the future this blog will have more information about my grandmother, her business, her art and her story, thanks to help from my dad. There will be pictures of pieces of pottery that I own, pictures of pieces that my parents own, and also I’ll be posting as I acquire new things. Plenty of work to be done and fun to be had!

Thank you for your interest in her work and in our journey.

-Mia