Lynn Bailey (Born 1975) American, Vultures and Roadkill Ceramic Sculpture. Paper label attributes to Marvin, the artist famous for these types of grotesque sculptures, usually of faces and other bizarre concepts, but this piece is signed on bottom by Lynn, his wife. 

Condition: Commensurate with age. 

Size: 5 1/4 x 4 x 3 1/4 in. 

Marvin Bailey was born in Lancaster, South Carolina in 1961. As a child he was known as precocious but quiet, and had difficulty focusing in school. He began working in his father’s greenhouse business in his late teens and found inspiration in nature and the outdoors. Around the same time he was introduced to ceramics as his father frequently brought home pieces of art pottery from his travels, particularly from Roseville Pottery and Rookwood Pottery. Bailey began collecting and even experimenting with pottery himself, and in 2001 his wife Lynn (born 1975) convinced him to leave the greenhouse business and develop his own company, soon joining him as an amateur sculptor as well. A self-taught artist, he quickly gained attention within the Appalachian folk art community when he began attending pottery festivals in the Carolinas and Georgia. He began by making traditional vases and flower pots, but a quirky concept in the mid-2000s led him to national fame with his bizarre, colorful, often grotesque “face jugs,” and he was able to open his own studio and store in nearby Kershaw where his oddities continue to sell well. Today many of his pieces are now in private and public collections, as well as in permanent displays at the South Carolina Artisans Center in Walterboro and the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia.

Commensurate with age.