We All End Up in the Clay: The Sculpture of James 'Son Ford' Thomas

Born in Eden, Mississippi, in 1926, James "Son Ford" Thomas was a sculptor and a blues musician celebrated as a major figure in the evolution of the Delta blues.

Thomas's uncle taught him to play guitar at age eight while also teaching him to sculpt using the local "gumbo" clay. His best-known sculptures are of human skulls, which he first made as a boy.

After working as a gravedigger from 1961-1971, he began sculpting human skulls again with the aim of accurately representing the dead.

Most of Thomas's sculptures portrayed members of his community, political figures, imagined faces, and in at least one instance, himself.

They incorporated marbles as eyes and real human hair.

Over time, he became increasingly interested in embellishments, such as wigs, sunglasses, and jewelry that he fashioned.

Thomas's busts of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were fashioned with cotton wigs, recalling its role in American political history and his own life. When he was young, Thomas picked cotton with his grandfather and later grew cotton as a sharecropper.

Thomas's straightforward depictions of the Delta wildlife belie a deeper meaning. Many hold symbolic significance in the African-American spiritual practice known as "hoodoo," in which Thomas believed. 

His sculpted birds referenced a local ban on quail hunting by African Americans. With a high meat content, quail was reserved as a delicacy for hunting and eating by whites only.

Thomas also created miniature clay dioramas of figures at work, rest, and posed in coffins.

The scenes reflect scenes of daily life and death he observed in Leland, Mississippi.