Mary Jackson—Sweetgrass Basket

Mary Jackson is a nationally recognized fiber artist. She is best known for her sweetgrass baskets that use traditional construction methods combined with her contemporary designs. A native of coastal South Carolina and a descendant of generations of Gullah basket weavers, Jackson was awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 2008 for "pushing the tradition in stunning new directions."

An excerpt about Jackson's work:
"Rows of coiled sweetgrass baskets stretch out across the tables in Charleston, South Carolina’s historic City Market, basket weaver beside basket weaver, fingers ticking away over sweetgrass and palmetto. So it has been for decades. Today’s weavers are only the latest practitioners of this Gullah tradition, one of the oldest surviving African art forms in the United States. The arrival of any one new basket weaver at the Market is not, in itself, cause for particular note. Yet when Mary Jackson first displayed her baskets here one Saturday in 1980, she says, 'people stopped in their tracks.' Jackson is known for works that bring traditional techniques into the present while they execute her concepts for lyrical forms."

Jackson’s baskets are represented in RAM's permanent collection.

Sweetgrass and palmetto

7 x 7 1/2 inches

RAM MEMBER PRICE: $675

  • $750.00


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