When George Edgar Ohr returned to Biloxi in 1883, he built a pottery studio and even made his own potter’s wheel and kiln for $26.80. Unlike other potters, Or was involved in all stages of the production process – from digging the red clay on the banks of the Chutacabuffa River to decorating and firing.

At first there was nothing special about Ora pottery. When he started, he was more concerned with supporting his wife and ten children, and he produced tourist souvenirs and utilitarian glassware, including mugs, flower pots and jugs, for sale. In his spare time, Or began experimenting and putting “personality into every jar and jug.” He called these works his “dirty babies” and took them to exhibitions in New Orleans and Chicago, but they sold poorly.

While many of his colleagues imitated the style and technique of Japanese and French pottery, Ohr became a wizard who invented his own, completely unconventional technique, transforming wet clay into bowls with crinkled edges, vases with long serpentine handles, misshapen and twisted jugs and other items. Ohr expressed his own creative credo this way: “God did not create two identical souls, and I will not make two identical pots.”

The color of Ora’s glazes is also distinguished by its originality. He mixed dull shades like gray and olive drab with bright reds and sunny oranges. Many of the glazes, the composition of which he kept secret, were his own invention.

His glazes, applied by sponging or spattering, were said by art historians to anticipate the abstract art that would gain popularity decades later. After 1903 he did not use glazes at all. Instead, he mixed clays of different colors to achieve the natural color of the product when fired in the kiln.

Ohr was an original and eccentric personality, a master of self-promotion. He liked to shock and shock the public. This passion for being original was evident in everything from his appearance to public displays, such as his appearance on a Mardi Gras float as an old man carrying a huge cross. He loved word games and called himself various names: the Crazy Potter of Biloxi, the M.D., the Mud Master, the consummate potter, the weirdo, and so on.

Apart from utilitarian pieces, Ohr sold very little of his artwork. Over the years, he accumulated almost ten thousand of his “dirty babies.” Around 1909, he packed them up and placed them in the studio’s attic before passing it on to his sons, who used the space as an auto repair shop.

In 1968, James Carpenter, a New Jersey barber with an antiques hobby, was traveling through the South looking for vintage cars and auto parts when he chanced upon Ohr’s former shop in Biloxi and discovered a collection of his work. Carpenter made an offer to the Ohr brothers for the entire lot. The brothers initially refused to sell, but eventually relinquished their inheritance for approximately $100,000.

Ohr’s eccentric works, which were not appreciated by his contemporaries, but have found recognition and understanding today and are sold at international auctions for six-figure sums. A large number of his works are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It took the world more than 50 years to appreciate the talent of the “Mad Potter of Biloxi.”