John Bowles (1802-1859) was my great-great-great-grandfather.  A professional Indian fighter in the Old West, he and his family -- a wife and 13 children -- traveled to Texas with the Patterson clan.  John didn’t approve of foul language, nor allow his sons to speak in that manner, especially in front of their mother.  The worst thing people heard him say was, “Well, hog my cats,” so his descendants refer to him as John “Hog My Cats” Bowles.  As it happened, he was killed on a mountain that looked like an upside bowl. 

Since the name “Bowles” means pot-maker, I chose clay as the medium, and because I wanted to capture a lot of detail in the carving, I chose porcelain because of its fine texture.

There are two stories depicted on the bowl.  One night, the Bowles family was having a party, and had not posted a guard for the horses.  John heard a commotion outside, and told his sons to continue playing the fiddle while he went with his gun to investigate.  He hid under a tree while three Indians tried to steal their horses.  Bowles fired his rifle, and all three Indians and a horse were hit with one shot! 

The other story recounts how John was killed by three Indians.  He was shot in the heart with three arrows which hit less than an inch apart, and was then scalped.  One of his sons led a group of men who chased those Indians over the course of several days.  When the sons killed the Indians, one of them had John’s scalp, along with scalps of three children. 

These two stories are carved into the bowl, one on each side, and each within the shape of the lower part of the state of Texas since that is where the stories took place.  The tales are found in Texas Indian Fighters, written in the late 1880s by A.J. Sowell, a Texas Ranger.  There is a detailed description of the Indian who had John’s scalp, as well as the vegetation in the area.  I also found a picture of one of John’s descendants holding the gun used in the story, and the leather vest he was wearing when he died is in a small museum in Bell County, Texas.  Besides these stories, John had a cattle brand -- a simple “B” -- which is carved into the bowl.  It was the second cattle brand issued in Bell County.  There are three holes in the “B” approximately where his heart would be if it was a human figure, representing the three arrows that killed him.  The Bowles crest was carved into that side.  His name and dates are carved into the remaining side, and it was filled in with gold ink after the piece was pit-fired.

The sculpture is made out of porcelain, and is 12” in diameter and 14” tall.  The bowl portion was thrown on the potter’s wheel, and the base was handbuilt and carved like a tree trunk.  Underneath John’s death scene is carved a broken branch to symbolize his death.  The entire piece was kept covered with plastic for 6 weeks, to dry it completely so as to avoid cracks or warping.  When it was completely dry, I burnished terra sigallatta on the piece.  Three coats of white went on the entire bowl, and then three coats of color went on top of that.  Where I wanted the piece to have more highlight, there is more burnish.  There are no glazes on this piece. 

After the carving was finished, the piece was bisque fired at “Cone 05”, and then it was pit-fired.  I put wet clay over the two stories to mask those sections from the smoke effect.  The bowl was placed on a bed of sawdust in a large pit in the ground, and then covered with more sawdust.  Two large bags of sawdust were used, and a bag of hay was placed on top of that.  A number of logs went on top, and then a fire was started with small dry twigs.  The roaring fire lasted for about 45 minutes, and then the pit was covered with a piece of corrugated tin.  The fire went out and the artwork smoked for about nine hours.  I was thrilled that there wasn’t even a hair fracture on the piece because the process is very unpredictable, but that is what is so beautiful about it -- much like life. 

Besides the creation of the artwork, the family tradition of storytelling moves forward in yet another format.