Memory Jug Workshop
Photo: Nathaniel Ryan Thompson
Create a vessel that tells your story.
Memory jugs are rooted in African American folk art, emerging in the American South in the late nineteenth century. The vessels are encrusted with objects—such as buttons, shells, marbles, keys, broken ceramics, coins, fragments of jewelry, and more—that belong to or are associated with a specific person. Memory jugs can also be traced back to West and Central African grave decorations and object-laden assemblages, where the surface of a vessel becomes a site of accumulation, memory, and spiritual attention. Adorned with special objects, memory jugs can hold a life story, carry a name, mark a passing, or simply gather together what matters to a person.
Led by artist, educator, and storyteller Saba Maheen, participants will create their own memory jugs using air-dry clay as a base and embedding a personal selection of small objects into the surface to build a vessel that tells a story. The project is open to all kinds of memory: a relationship, a place, a season of life, a person you carry with you.
Materials will be provided. Participants are welcome to bring small items of personal significance to incorporate into their memory jugs.
Registration required | Open to the public (ages 14+)
$25 | Members $20 | Free for Princeton University students
