Pottery Burnishing

Chickasaw Culture Keepers

Chickasaw potter Ben White has been fascinated with pottery since he was a young boy. Today, he mixes ancient and modern techniques to create one-of-a-kind burnished pottery. Burnishing pottery is a technique in which clay is polished to a beautiful sheen without glaze, using an implement such as a smooth stone. "Burnishing was a big part of what our ancestors would use to make their pottery look nice," he says. " When I first started doing pottery, my grandfather gave me an Indian name of Tushka Ishto and I was a warrior for 31 years as a firefighter, trying to stop the damage from heat and smoke in people's lives and in their houses. And now since I've retired, I do nothing but try to figure out how to use heat and smoke to color the pots a different way." Growing up, one of his favorite activities was to find an old pot shard in a book or in a photo and recreate it. Years from now, he hopes someone will find his pot shards and try to recreate them.