Shearwater Pottery is a gallery and gift shop of pottery by the Anderson Family

Shearwater Pottery is located in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. At Shearwater Pottery visitors are able to view and purchase the thrown glazed ware that is created by Peter Anderson, his family and learn the story of their lives.

Shearwater Pottery opened to the public over seventy five years ago as a family business with Annette McConnell Anderson providing the artistic input and George Walter Anderson providing the business input. Their sons, Peter, Walter and Mac also became artists and heavily involved in the success of the business.

Shearwater Pottery was severely damaged in Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The centre has recently been rebuilt with a new showroom keeping the classic, rustic and beautiful natural settings of the original building. Visitors are able to purchase a memento from any one of the three generations of potters. Items for sale include mugs, lamps, bowls, vases and many other pieces of art created by an Anderson family member.

The pottery is untouched by time and still run by the Anderson family. Visitors are able to wander through the majority of the shed. Members of the family are happy to stop and answer any questions that visitors may have.

The Anderson's work is similar to that tough at Newcomb College with the classic shapes, yet they glaze their work differently and the Andersons believed that this is what sets their work apart from other potters. Peter created new glaze colors and gave them poetic names such as Blue Rain, Hyacinth, Grey Cloud, Desert Sage, Fall Green and Wisteria.

Walter and Mac started to decorate pots and make figurines when they returned from college and then helped build the showroom that opened on the 19th January 1928. Less than ten years after opening the business pieces of art from Shearwater were displayed in Lord & Taylor and Strawbridge, Marshall Field in Chicago, art studios in New York and Philadelphia, at the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston and have toured the United States with the Robineau exhibition.

The pottery has often taken on a world of story, myth and sports, along with the flora and fauna of the Mississippi coast. The family uses scratching, cutting, carving and painting to decorate the pieces. The unique pairing of whimsy and epic colors and forms is what helps to create the greatest works at Shearwater.