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Description
Through an exploration of the tactile pleasures of drinking vessels, Pitchers of American Life traces the role of these objects as representative art and collective tools-episodes of American history that resonate today in our everyday lives and yearnings for sociability and communion.
Generously illustrated, and richly woven with personal memoir, discussion ranges from vessels within ancient cultures and religious and family rituals to the growth of mass production and contemporary consumer culture. Shales blends the social histories of art/artifacts with memories of working on a museum installation crew, as an educator, and as a shopper; in each chapter he interprets a single object as a revealing time capsule.
Table of Contents
Time Capsule 1: Standing on One Foot: A Kylix from Cyprus
Time Capsule 2: Animated Bodies: A Chimú Whistling Jug
Time Capsule 3: Handling America: An AncestralPueblo Vessel
Time Capsule 4: Impressing Jugs: Bartmannkrüge
Time Capsule 5: Communal Caudle Cups (as Instruments for Ecstasy)
Time Capsule 6: Communing with Illustrious Heads and Face Jugs
Time Capsule 7: Publishing Art©™ Jugs, “A Display of Multifarious Learning”
Time Capsule 8: Pitchering Women at the Well
Time Capsule 9: Decanting Tribal Identities
Time Capsule 10: Little Brown Jugs: Artifice or Authenticity?
Time Capsule 11: Modern Equipment
Time Capsule 12: Throwaway Culture Connoisseurship
Conclusion: A Pitcher of Reliefe
Product details
| Published | Feb 19 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 288 |
| ISBN | 9781350386716 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Visual Arts |
| Illustrations | 200 colour illus |
| Dimensions | 10 x 7 inches |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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