320 
The. Garden Magazine, July, 1923 
but in our Northern climate they 
would have to be set out from 
greenhouses for the summer season. 
Against a house of stucco or stone 
there is an immense decorative value 
in these glazed pots with colored 
patterns. In one Long Island gar¬ 
den there is a small fountain with 
a basin of Persian blue glazed pot¬ 
tery. It makes a brilliant and yet 
simple note of color repeating the 
color note of the sea close by. 
T HE suggestion which we would 
like to emphasize is the oppor¬ 
tunity for American artist potters to 
design and execute, for modem uses 
and according to their own ideas, 
pottery such as we have been de¬ 
scribing. The main point is that 
we need color as well as form. The 
old American gardens had the color 
of flowers and foliage only, and all 
architectural accessories were of 
cast stone, marble, or white paint on 
wood. The utmost attempt at color 
was reddish terra-cotta and com¬ 
mon brick. There is as much op¬ 
portunity for creating a satisfying 
POTTERY IN A CITY GARDEN 
So cleverly has Mr. Jens Jensen (Landscape Architect) manipulated nature 
that Chicago is completely shut out by a mantle of green and birds come to 
bathe in this pool whose seclusion is stressed by the two jars skilfully stood in 
just the right place 
tiles set so close together that the joints scarcely showed, the 
result being both decorative and pictorial. In more modern 
forms they may well be set now in our loggias, sun-parlors and 
courtyards, in our modern towns the old ugly backyards are 
being converted into pleasant gardens, and these offer an en¬ 
chanting opportunity for the use of tiles. 
London abounds in small semi-public parks, whereas New 
York has only a few of this kind, Gramercy Park being one. 
They are a London charm for which New York has little to show. 
But the conversion of New York backyards in all her residential 
blocks from backyards into community gardens would be a 
natural development. It would give the city a retired beauty 
of its own, a Mediterranean touch that climatically belongs to 
it, and make city life, for six months at least of the year, a 
pleasanter thing to think of than it now is. 
T HE tradition of tile making has in recent times been de¬ 
veloped and elaborated here by one or two artist potters, 
as for example, the Mercers, makers of Doylestown pottery in 
Pennsylvania, and Mrs. Perry-Stratton, maker of the Pewabic 
tile of Detroit, both enthusiasts, working on a small personal 
scale, who have finally been drawn into production on a larger 
scale, without losing all the personal values. These tiles are 
much used for the floors of loggias, courtyards, etc. 
Tiles are something in the nature of a background. They 
relieve the monotony of cement. But the patios were further 
enhanced in color and pattern by the use of flower-pots, jars, 
urns, of both glazed and unglazed pottery, of varying shapes 
and sizes, for holding growing plants. They were placed in 
formal processions on either side of flights of steps, along the 
tops of walls, grouped in tiers against the walls, around the 
bases of fountains, in fact almost anywhere that there was 
standing room. The plants might be clipped evergreens, Box 
or flowering shrubs, and in a mild climate these could easily 
grow all the year round, for instance in California or Florida, 
DURANT POTTERY 
“A new group of artist potters is springing up, and at their 
hands there are coming into being new forms of garden 
sculpture and pottery, touched by old tradition, but not 
trammeled by it ” (Vase above reproduced by courtesy of 
the Arden Studios) 
color scheme in a garden or loggia by the aid of colored tiles 
and pottery filled with plants as in designing the color scheme 
of an interior, and the field in this country is a less tried one. 
Among the craftsmen who settled in this country in the early 
18th century were potters, from Staffordshire and Holland, who 
carried on their old world traditions, adapting them to the 
primitive domestic uses of the pioneer, in North Carolina, 
Pennsylvania, and several parts of New England, where various 
kinds of potter’s clay were found. In North Carolina the rich 
