More Native American art

More art from the James Museum of Western Art
St Petersburg, FL

Barb Baker and I both loved the art of Tammy Garcia

I loved the models...since I made some of antique cars as a kid.

Bronze art

Much of the entrance and first floor of the James Museum in St. Petersburg FL has wonderful bronze statues...mainly of American Indians or old western figures.

Some Swannanoa Valley History of pottery

As a docent at the Swannanoa Valley Museum and History Center (SVM) I want to share some of the pottery that has been made here about 1300 years ago, and more recently, by Native Americans in the area.

The archaeological display speaks of firing pots by the time Woodland Indians were living in the area (640 A.D.)

These display boards are about the digs by Warren Wilson college professors and students.

"Maude Welch, a Cherokee potter, lived as a young woman in Sough Carolina in Catawba surroundings, later moving to the Qually Boundary. She died in 1953.  Her descendants still live in Cherokee."  Qualla Boundary is a Cherokee reservation, including the city of Cherokee NC.

 (See below for reading the sign about the Wedding Pot)

A stirrup jug is a style that was often used in Meso-America, so it comes from the Western North America and Central and South American indigenous peoples from before there was European contact.

Three periods explained on story boards for the exhibit.

The display about Native Americans is rather small, and I'll share more about the rest of it in my other blog, Living in Black Mountain NC.

Sacred stone writings

I've heard of "newspaper rocks" and viewed some out west.  And some in the southeast.  Here's Judaculla Rock, right in my backyard, so to speak.  It's near Cullowee, NC, a little over an hour from my home in Black Mountain.

 First view...it's huge, with a nice interpretive walkway around it...no not a translation, but some of its history!

 It's location is at the head of a cove, with a field of cattle next to it.  It's been protected by one family, the Parkers, who have owned and farmed the valley for generations.

These nice interpretive plaques are arranged around the raised walkway overlooking the rock.  Seeing the Cherokee Syllabary, I remembered reading about Sequoia, who devised it so that their language could be written. Then I tried to remember New Echota, GA, where many Cherokee were housed before the "trail of tears," the genocidal removal of Native Americans to the west by white men.

The information given says the rock was used to form bowls as these three lumps show the beginning of carving away the basic shapes...about 3000 years ago.  The other marks are unknown but believed to have been carved 1500 years ago.

As we looked at the symbols, and discussed what we saw (our own sense of meaning of course, like how art therapy looks at intuitive meanings of symbols) we made discoveries that changed.  One part seemed to be a footprint, but later we thought it looked more like a man and woman.  I think these signs may well have deeper meaning.  We didn't stand and ponder for long however, but I am glad to have brought home some good photos which I can now look at for more intense study.

Anyone who has studied Karl Jung and archetypal meanings of symbols would really enjoy these carvings.  And any archeologist would enjoy thinking of the people, the culture that was supportive of the forming of this enduring collection.  Myself, I am thrilled to finally see it.  Now to find the Cat Museum in Sylva...