A face jug created by potter Ben Alford Watford of New Bern, North Carolina, is currently on display and available for purchase at the RAL Art Center in Kilmarnock.

Watford donated the jug to the Rappahannock Art League to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the organization’s founding. Its sale will support art education for children and senior adults in Lancaster County.

The jug is representative of a type of pottery that was historically produced by members of the African American enslaved community in the Edgefield district of South Carolina, said a press release. The vessels are turned stoneware featuring wide eyes and bared teeth.

Watford explained that “if you’re going to enslave someone, you have to dehumanize them.” In South Carolina, slaves were not allowed to put markers over their loved ones’ graves, “like animals,” he said. “You don’t mark an animal’s grave.”

The slaves began setting jugs and trinkets over the graves instead, eventually adding ugly or monstrous ...