ARTISTS

Artists Sweetgrass Artisan

AD FOLK ART, LLC adrumm1@gmail.com | arundrummond.com

Self-taught SC folk artist painting since 2004. Educating visitors through his art and his passion for storytelling. His mixed media works that incorporate sweetgrass baskets have been featured on Food Network and in Conde Nast Traveler magazine. Find his art exclusively at the Historic Charleston City Market.

JONATHAN GREEN STUDIOS, LLC jonathangreenstudios.com

The studio represents or features other artists whose work reflects the themes of work, love, belonging, and one’s relationship to the environment. By appointment only.

Picture Perfect Photography By Monifa

BASDEO monifabasdeo@p3photography08.com | p3photography08.com

We are a phenomenal photography business specializing in wedding and lifestyle portraits.

QUILTED ARTISTRY BY RENEE quiltedartistry@gmail.com | quiltedartistrybyrenee.com

Contemporary textile artist.

COREY ALSTON SWEETGRASS BASKETS corey.alston@comcast.net | facebook.com/sweetgrassbasket/

A generational sweetgrass weaver who designs his artwork in a variety of styles. The coiled woven basket was first used during days of enslavement for the rice cultivation.

GEECHEE GYAL SWEETGRASS BASKETS geecheesweetgrassbaskets@gmail.com etsy.com/shop/GeecheeGyalBaskets

I’m a basket weaver that makes and sells sweetgrass basket in Charleston and surrounding areas.

GULLAH SWEETGRASS BASKETS andrea@gullahsweetgrassbaskets.com | gullahsweetgrassbaskets.com

Andrea Cayetano-Jefferson proudly represents the rich Gullah culture through her peerless creations as a sixth generation sweetgrass basket artist. As a child she studied the intricacies of basket sewing from her mother and aunt whom she attributes her commitment to continuing the traditional art form honoring her Gullah ancestors and history.

HENRIETTA SNYPE hsbaskets@gmail.com | myhsbaskets.com

A native of Mount Pleasant, Henrietta learned the art of weaving Sweetgrass Baskets at the age of 7 from her mother, Mary Mazyck, who learned the art from her mother Elizabeth Johnson and so on since before the Middle Passage. She has taught this valuable skill to her children and grandchildren. Henrietta continues teaching this art in schools, universities, giving demonstrations, and workshops around the world.

SWEETGRASS BASKETS BY TONYA AIKEN tonyaaiken2@icloud.com | FB: Sweetgrass Baskets by Tonya Aiken

As a sweetgrass basket maker, Tonya Aiken has been making baskets for over 40 years. She is proud of the heritage that her family has left for her and her children. She can be found at your favorite Charleston City Market, as well as City Night Market in Charleston.

SWEETGRASS CREATIONS BY LYNETTE lynetteyouson@hotmail.com facebook.com/sweetgrasscreationsbylynette/

Weaving baskets is one of the earliest African crafts to take root in America over 300 years ago. Baskets are coiled together using native materials grown naturally by the marsh- sweetgrass, pine needles, bulrush and palmetto palms. Fifth-generation basket maker who learned her craft as a child from her greatgrandmother, Maggie Jefferson Williams still weaves daily with her mother, Marilyn Williams Dingle.

Art gives meaning to our lives and helps us understand our world. It can capture a moment in time, historical events, social ideas, and political commentary. Stirring art can create feelings of awe, wonder, or inspiration in the beholder, and foster a sense of belonging and community. The medium allows people to express emotions, commemorate history, expose injustices, overcome obstacles, and celebrate survival. For the Gullah Geechee community in the South Carolina Lowcountry, traditional arts, often passed from generation to generation through family lines, is often a way to connect to the ancestors, to find out how those that came before endured and overcame the brutality of living in the region during unjust conditions.

For many of the Black artists living in the region,the traditional arts designed by their ancestors emerged out of innovation and necessity. Daily items like cast nets for fishing, sweetgrass baskets, and clothing were elevated beyond their utilitarian function, creating beautiful but often practical pieces. Modern Black artists have also incorporated painting into their repertoire. In paintings, Gullah Geechee artists often use art elements like flow lines, patterns, and vibrant colors to convey a sense of identity and celebrate aspects of everyday life in the region. Captured scenes usually take place in nature, often by the water, an important element to the Black community that live here. Colorful, with an emphasis on visual movement, Black art in and around Charleston is often referenced but impossible to imitate.

Charleston’s local arts scene is constantly expanding and diversifying, and the city is replete with galleries, museums and leisure spaces that showcase photography, paintings, sculptures and installations. The performing arts also thrive here, with concerts, plays and ballets occurring weekly. Art walks, which routinely happen on weekends, are a fantastic way to discover local artists, art galleries and art exhibitions. Future generations will learn about modern Charleston and its current events through the works practicing artists will leave behind. Viewing and interacting with Charleston’s art and the artists at work is a way to appreciate the history of a people that have always found a way to showcase their talents, and celebrate their heritage.

Museums and other cultural institutions are the intellectual backbone of a historic city like Charleston, which touts the oldest museum in the United States. Spaces like these, when executed well, are knowledge sites, empowering structures where visitors as well as community members can engage with information that illustrates how their personal stories, the nation’s history, and global cultures intersect. Exhibitions in these places give context to the social, political, economic, religious and cultural forces at play in the community and illustrate how an area’s values and identities are shaped, reflected, and communicated.

Plantations are included in this classification—while often lauded for their grand beauty, their grounds present a powerful opportunity to talk about a harrowing aspect of America’s history, and the enslaved labor force that built and maintained much of what still exists on these properties today. Recently updated heritage tours recast local history, presenting complicated and inclusive understandings of the past, asking visitors to look beyond the lavish furniture and elegant chinaware to understand the perspective and stories of the enslaved people whose labor that world that these white families relied on to accumulate their wealth. Meant to prompt honest reflection in a way that asks tour takers to reflect critically upon their own life experiences, as well as their interactions with historical narratives, plantations can transform how the region presents its history and celebrates its cultural heritage.

Segregation attempted to keep Black people from contributing to the larger narrative of progress in America, but the Black communities in the Lowcountry built their own organizations and institutions that would allow them to provide context to their stories, and illustrate their struggles and resilience in a more humane light. Local Black intellectual repositories, whether they’re churches, museums, community centers. or even regularly scheduled informal gatherings, are places for collecting and sharing cultural materials.

Often created at a time when items created and used by Black and working-class people were frequently overlooked or excluded from collections, the community gathered toys, tools, clothes, furniture, diaries, letters or family records that were important to their personal stories, as well as those living around them. In these settings, the belief that there is value in all forms of history means that oral traditions and folk histories are just as important as written documents and books.

These enduring institutions are important keepers of not just Black culture but American history and global knowledge. Often found within the walls of these organizations are the materials that sustained the Black community throughout the eras of slavery, segregation, and other hardships. They celebrate the creativity, resiliency, and optimism deeply rooted in Black culture, educating future generations on the multiplicity of ways to interpret the story of Charleston, and America.

HISTORICAL / CULTURAL

& SO CITIES

AIKEN-RHETT HOUSE MUSEUM historiccharleston.org