Marvin Bailey (born 1961) American, Lady With Pigs On Her Head Ceramic Folk Art. African American female figure in a red polka-dotted dress with a bowl on her head that is full of tiny pigs. Honestly not even close to the weirdest thing the artist has made. Incised signature at bottom on back. 

Condition: Good. 

Size: 8 1/2 x 7 1/2 x 25 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 convinced him to leave the greenhouse business and develop his own company. 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. 

Good.