July Issue 2002
Folk Art Center in Asheville, NC, Features Works by Carlson Tuttle & Nanette Davidson
The Southern Highland Craft Guild highlights two of its members in the Focus Gallery in the Blue Ridge Parkway's Folk Art Center in Asheville, NC, through July 23, 2002. Traditional craft is the theme of this exhibition featuring basket maker Carlson Tuttle (Burnsville, NC) and rug maker Nanette Davidson (Brasstown, NC). Both follow weaving traditions, though Tuttle borrows from Central American cultures and Davidson practices in a folk idiom of the United States.
Since 1985, Tuttle has lived part-year in Belize and studied the traditional baskets of the Garifuna people there. This experience led to the body of work on display. The predominant material used is gomerai, a vine-like palm. The material is gathered from the rain forest by pulling it out of a tree then removing its outer layer of 2-inch thorns. It is quartered, and then split, ending up with materials that are used for basket making. This material preparation is similar to that of white oak basket making in North Carolina. Tuttle's baskets are woven in various bias twill patterns, which has a historical relationship to Cherokee baskets. The bias twill weaving used by the Cherokee came from South America centuries ago. The tradition moved from South America to the Antilles and Florida peninsula; from there, it continued northward and influenced the native people in southeastern North America.
Nanette Davidson has been weaving rag rugs and teaching others to do so for over twenty years. She looks for discarded fabrics from the manufacturing industry and recycles them into something beautiful and useful. She has experimented with many different weave structures and rug styles over the years, allowing the materials to dictate the style of the finished piece. Davidson's environment is a constant source of inspiration. She lives in a small community in western North Carolina that is filled with musicians, dancers, storytellers, and craftspeople. Her rugs are hand dyed in hues that echo the rich colors of the Appalachian seasons. She notes, "The rugs are named for fiddle tunes that are always with us here, passed down from our Scots-Irish heritage and played by family and friends."
For more information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the center at 828/298-7928, e-mail at (shcgcurator@att.net) or on the web at (www.southernhighlandguild.org).
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