Page 158 - Wish Book

For some 35 years, Jackson has created baskets true to
that long, unbroken tradition, yet with a modern look and an expressive, sculptural air that’s distinctively hers. She weaves them out of the strong, pliable sweetgrass that grows around the marshes and swamps of coastal South Carolina’s Low Country. A descendant of the Gullah community, Jackson
has lived there almost all her life. She sews the grasses with palmetto strips, sparingly adding design accents of bulrush and pine needles. All are the same native materials used since the early plantation days, when they were harvested and
woven into containers for agricultural and household use. Elegant and ne, Jackson’s baskets are shown in major art museums and prized by collectors around the world, including Prince Charles and Empress Michiko of Japan. She has received the highest honors, from a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” to a National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship. “I always wanted to keep the tradition in mind, to respect what was passed down to me,” she says of her craft, which she learned from her mother and grandmother at the age of 4. “I just wanted to bring it to another level.”
Mary Jackson
Charleston