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Decorating Clay Founded in 1785, Edgefield boasts a proud revolutionary war history. Abner Landrum is said to have established the first shop in the region around 1810 and the fact that he named his...
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"Green" pots are those that have dried naturally by sun and air circulation, but have yet to be fired. A sunny, windless day is the ideal setting for the day of a firing. Before firing, green pots are...
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The natural world pervades nearly every aspect of the Catawba pottery tradition. Nature-inspired motifs include the turtle, frog, black snake, snail, feather and palm leaf, and are often connected to...
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Like many traditional crafts, brooms are functional items that have beautiful and thought-provoking qualities. Weaving and sewing techniques attach the broom straw to the handle, while allowing Peter...
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Herb Parker's Piccolo Labyrinth, a nature-based sculpture of grass, sod and steel rebar, created a temporary, "quiet, contemplative space" on Charleston's waterfront. As an installation, the sculpture...
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Extended ephemeral work lasts for several years while encouraging the artist and viewer to revisit the sculpture throughout its life cycle. Parker describes ephemeral elements of his work in the...
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The Boozer family's move from the midlands of South Carolina to its coast was a bit of a homecoming. In 1734, Tom's ancestors emigrated from Germany to the Charleston area, where they worked as...
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Raking, planting and laughter could be heard for miles on Saturday as Boy and Girls Club members and community volunteers came together to plant a garden. The garden is a part of the project by the...
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Decoy makers use field guides, photographs, and duck mounts as references for painting their decoys. Tom mixes ordinary house paints to achieve the unique colors of many species of waterfowl. After...
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Herb Parker describes his work as belonging to three distinct realms: architecture, sculpture, and landscape. Passageways, thresholds, oculi, seating areas, and planned spaces of light and shade...
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A look at various possibilities that exist for green jobs in South Carolina.
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Exterior revisions to Crucible involved adding a sturdy, stacked stone layer to its dome and a covering of native plants such as ebony spleenwort and sheet moss. The following video features Clemson...
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Native Americans called it "tree hair." French colonists changed it to "Barbe espagnole," or "Spanish Beard," to ridicule the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Spanish moss survives as its common name...
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After the body is hollowed, Tom attaches the carved head of the duck. Tom takes care to attach the head at an angle that appears natural and in keeping with the attitude of the body. After the head is...
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A hunt with Tom is a lesson in waterfowl behavior, habitat, and patience. Our hunting trip with Tom could be considered a "blue bird day", a pleasant, calm day, yet not one conducive to duck hunting...
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Weaving. After Peter has securely attached the broom straw to the handle, he begins to weave the base of the straw into a uniform shape and pattern around the handle.
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Peter obtains many of his broom handles by collecting driftwood from rivers. Whitewater rivers of the Piedmont and Blue Ridge may yield rhododendron and dogwood, while the flat meandering rivers of...
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Flattening. Brooms come in round and flat shapes. For our camera, Peter chose to create a flat , sweeping end that is more typical of a modern broom. Peter flattens the broom by jumping on it. A vice...
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Securing Weaving. In this step, Peter secures the finished weaving with a simple knot. The rough, unwoven parts of the broom straw base are cut off using a bread knife.
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Peter is a physical education professor at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches canoeing and kayaking as a healthy pursuit and a fun way to enjoy nature. In this video, we take a trip to...
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One theory suggests that the traditional American broom has its origins in Benjamin Franklin's beaver skin hat. In the late 1700s, Franklin received a whiskbroom from France, purchased by a friend who...
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The stone outcrop at the Hagood Mill Historical site contains prehistoric rock art as well as a few not-so rare messages likely carved in the 19th or 20th centuries. Archaeologist Tommy Charles...
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Hundreds, possibly thousands, of years of weathering and erosion rendered the Hagood Mill site petroglyphs invisible to the naked eye. Amateur archaeologist Mike Bramlett discovered several of the...
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Rock art at the Hagood Mill site is open to many interpretations. Is the imagery sacred, documentation of historic events, part of a simple amusement, or of a larger pictographic language? The answer...
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Archaeologists reconstruct past lives by collecting and examining evidence such as tools, art objects and other material signs of culture. Finding the meaning behind the petroglyphs is the next step...
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Many traditional Catawba pot designs are based on a basic "cooking pot" style, dating back to the Woodland period (1000 BCE - 1000 CE) of North American pre-Columbian culture. Widespread use and trade...
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Artifacts are manmade objects, sometimes referred to as material remains, that are recovered during the excavation process. Pot shards, intact pots, rubbing stones and arrowheads are examples of...
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Maintaining Catawba tradition involves passing down family histories, belief systems, language, folklore, the arts and other aspects of cultural heritage. The Catawba Cultural Preservation Project...
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The bean pot is a traditional form that resurfaced in the Catawba potter’s repertoire in the early 1990s. Master potters used an image from an anthropological record of the early 1900s to guide their...