Native American Studies Archive - University of South Carolina Lancaster

Reviving an Ancient Tradition

Interviewing Steve Baker. Native American Studies Week, 2009.

The 1973 Columbia, SC Museum of Art Catawba Indian

Pottery Exhibit

"It's a dying art and perhaps the oldest in America. For while the shapes were chiefly inspired by objects in the white settlers' households, and their needs, the native potters made them their own, and their methods go back into pre-history"
Harriet Doar, The Charlotte Observer, Nov. 25, 1973

Despite predictions like Harriet Doar's, the Catawba Indian Pottery tradition is alive and vibrant today with perhaps 40 individuals making pottery and teaching the craft to younger generations. This ancient craft has roots so far back in time that it's impossible to pinpoint it's origins. The Catawbas and their ancestors have been making pottery using clay from nearby the Catawba River for 4500 years. This tradition is the oldest continuous pottery tradition in the United States.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the craft and many elements of Catawba Indian lifeways were endangered. With the ending of segregation, new opportunities became available and most Catawba Indians went to work in local textile mills. Pottery commanded very low prices at this time and the craft declined until only two older Catawba women were still making pottery for sale.

"By the time Keith Brown (now a noted potter in our time) was coming of age, (ca. 1960s) the Catawbas as a tribe were almost gone. Nobody spoke the language anymore, or performed the dances, or dressed any differently from their white neighbors. There were some potters still working with the clay, digging from the veins that ran near the river, straining and massaging the rust-colored soil, building their elaborate pieces by hand. But even these artists were starting to disappear - and with them a final link to the past." (As Long as the Waters Flow: Native Americans in the South and East, 1998).

Steven Guy Baker was a graduate student in the History program at the University of South Carolina. He became interested in the Catawba, befriended these elderly women, and made efforts to try and promote their pottery through an art exhibit and sale.
He applied for and received a grant from the South Carolina Arts Commission. Some selected quotes from the grant application:

"This "folk art" is today the oldest surviving art form in the State and is now in the last phases of becoming extinct."

"On a purely subject level the show will pay tribute to the Catawba potters of past and present and give them recognition as the representatives of those people who faithfully served the infant colony of South Carolina in the critical years of its founding"

"The proposed project has an explicit goal of stimulating potential for survival and/or renewal of the Catawba pottery trade."

The Columbia Museum of Art agreed to host the exhibit. Catawba Indian Trade Pottery of the Historic Period was the name of this brief 15 day exhibit. The November 1973 museum newsletter describes the upcoming exhibit:

Creating the exhibit was a large undertaking for Steve Baker. (The Steven Guy Baker Collection, housed in the USC Lancaster Native American Studies Archive contains many materials relative to this exhibit.) Mr. Baker did extensive field work for the exhibit. This involved numerous trips to the Catawba Reservation to interview the potters about their personal histories, families, and pottery techniques, Baker also had to encourage these somewhat reluctant ladies to make pottery for exhibit and sale at the upcoming exhibit. Pottery pieces had to be borrowed from several institutions. The Mint Museum, The Charlotte Nature Museum, the York County Children's Nature Museum, and the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology all contributed vessels. Items were also borrowed from several private collections.

Four Catawba women agreed to make pottery for the exhibit. Sara Ayers (1919-2002), Doris Blue (1905-1985), Georgia Harris (1905-1997), and Arzada Sanders (1896-1989).

Steve Baker photographed the potters working at, or in their homes. Many of these images were reproduced on posters created for the exhibit.

Arzada Sanders:

Pottery of Sara Ayers:

Georgia Harris:

Doris Blue:

The exhibit focused on the historical and contemporary aspects of Catawba Indian Pottery. The pottery tradition is usually transmitted through family lines and Baker made charts showing each show participant's pottery lineage:

Pottery tradition of Doris Blue:

The exhibit opened on Sunday, November 25, 1973. The four potters had made 61 pieces. Arzada Sanders donated two of her vessels to the Columbia Museum of Art. One of these was an elephant effigy, "an historically priceless piece" according to Steve Baker. (It should be noted that the USC Lancaster Catawba Indian Pottery collection, the world's largest at 1300 pieces, contains no elephants. Staff do not remember ever hearing of any potter making one).
Pricing was the great success of the show. The Catawba potters priced their vessels before Baker picked them up. According to the potters, Baker significantly increased the prices on many pots before the show; In some cases, almost doubling them.
The show was definitely a success. In the final grant report submitted by Baker to the South Carolina Arts Commission he stated that 39 out of 61(almost two-thirds) of the pots were sold.

Price List for show:

Dr. Thomas J Blumer (our primary donor at the Native American Studies Archive) researched and worked with the Catawba Indians for several decades. Georgia and Tom were the best of friends and exchanged over 1100 letters. In March of 1980 he interviewed Georgia about the 1973 exhibit.

Georgia Harris discusses the show https://soundcloud.com/stream

Selected excerpts:

“[Steve Baker] was wanting to put on that show. . . . And I told him, I said, ‘I’m working; I don’t have time to make [pottery]!’ And he kept on. . . . And so, one day, I sat down and I made about a dozen . . . . He told me to price my pots. . . . I was pleased [with the prices]. Baker just went wild with mine! After he took them, he even put them up higher than I had them! I got one hundred dollars for that headed bowl! . . . And so, the big headed one was the last one sold. . . . And the next week, I got a [check]. . . Now it went to two hundred and some dollars!” – (Georgia Harris Oral History Interview March 1980 )

George Harris made about $200 from the sale of her pottery. Using the inflation calculator from the US Bureau of Labor, $200 in 1973 money is worth $1057.31 today (2015). Definitely a strong incentive to begin making pottery again.

The 1973 Columbia Museum of Art Show was the beginning of a rebirth of tribal culture and tradition; the start of what later would be called the “Catawba Renaissance.”

It was an important moment for the potters and the Catawba Indian Nation. Would the tradition have died out? One can only conjecture. The show strongly influenced its participants and others who had not made pottery in decades to return to the craft. They in turn trained a new generation who are the Catawba potters of today.

Exhibit photographs: