This week we finish up Artober on CP, in conversation with artist, Mary Jackson, a renowned sweetgrass basket weaver known for combining traditional methods with contemporary designs. 

Based in the Low Country of South Carolina, Mary is the descendant of generations of Gullah basket weavers. Born in 1945, in 2008, Mary was awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship (“Genius Grant”) for "pushing the centuries-old tradition in stunning new directions”. 

From the 1970s through to the early 2000s, Mary became something of an accidental Gardener, environmental restorationist, and economic driver, when she recognized the dwindling supply and access to the signature native sweetgrass that her cultural art and tradition relied on. This diminishing resource was due in part to booming development along the U.S. Southeast coasts, the fragmentation and destruction of delicate coastal ecosystems, and the increasing exclusion of Gullah basketmakers from traditional harvest sites.

Mary took it on herself to organize the basketmaking community, and working in collaboration with this community and Robert DuFault, of the Clemson University Department of Biological Sciences, her initiative led work to secure sustainable availability and access to native sweetgrass (Muhlenbergia sp.) for the traditional basket makers, and future of this traditional art, craft, and cultural symbol.

Gullah Sweetgrass baskets are an over 400-year tradition in the U.S. Southeast, first as a highly prized skill and centuries, if not millennia-old, passed-down knowledge of enslaved West Africans being brought to the colonies.

These skills and knowledge directly contributed to the success specifically of rice farming in the region, where highly developed and precisely crafted utilitarian baskets were used for everything from carrying, harvesting, winnowing, to fine household tasks. 

Gullah Sweetgrass Baskets are a continued symbol of the City of Charleston, South Carolina, and for over a century, these skilled artists and their basketry have been an economic and cultural mainstay in the region. All depending on healthy and abundant native sweetgrass, palmetto, and loblolly or longleaf pine ecosystems and supply.

The “access” Mary catalyzed in response to this contraction of the health and supply of sweetgrass ultimately included: research into successful germination of sweetgrass at scale and teaching basket makers how to grow sweetgrass at home; the enventual introduction of Muhlenbergia species to the plant and garden trade, making it now a staple of the ornamental grass and native plant movements; large-scale plantings of the grasses on private and public grounds with permission for basketmakers to harvest and tend; and, finally, Army Corps of Engineers and coastal developments working to replant and restorate inter-tidal beach dunes with the stabilizing native sweetgrass. 

All of this from one woman’s impulse to cultivate plants with an eye to protecting the legacy of her people, and the future of their craft. Now an elder, Mary agreed to be one of the interview subjects of our 10 Cultivating Place Live events in 2024 and 2025. For the CP LIVE events, which will be included in the final Cultivating Place: The Power of Gardeners documentary film series, Jennifer interviewed Mary Jackson, Robert Dufault, and next-generation artist and Sweetgrass basket leader, Corey Alston in front of a public audience in Theodora Park, Charleston, SC. This week’s podcast conversation was an interview with just Mary and Jennifer filmed and recorded live by EM EN in Mary’s Studio, on John’s Island, outside of Charleston. Enjoy!