Sweetgrass baskets: A dying art form and the Hilton Head artisans who refuse to see it go
In front of the Coastal Discovery Museum on Hilton Head Island, Michael Smalls and Dino Badger, the self-proclaimed “Gullah Elders,” sat meticulously sewing the beginning stages of a pair of sweetgrass baskets.
Shaded under a large, live oak tree covered in Spanish moss that swayed with the breeze, the sun shining through the branches on a warm, spring morning, a woman stopped on Tuesday to admire the beautifully crafted baskets in front of her.
Next, two more gentlemen moved to observe the table set with baskets as palmetto roses caught their eyes.
Michael Smalls, a seventh-generation basket-sewer has been sewing baskets for more than 50 years and was first taught the craft by his mother and great-grandmother when he was 7 years old.
“When I was around that age in Mount Pleasant, they had roadside stands where they’d sell their wares and they’d sit under the trees and do that,” Smalls said. “So, with me being young, I was out there kind of playing around until I decided I wanted to learn how to do it.”
Sweetgrass basket sewing is an artisan craft which originated in Sierra Leone, West Africa. It was brought to the Lowcountry with those who were enslaved. The basketry art was first used for everyday living, such as carrying children and harvesting food. Kept alive by passing the basket sewing techniques from generation to generation, these intricate baskets now serve more of a decorative purpose and have since acquired more embellished patterns.
With the number of knowledgeable artists decreasing, Smalls worries that sweetgrass baskets are a dying art.
“It’s become a dying art. We can’t really get our young people interested in doing it,” Smalls said.
Dino Badger, a former apprentice of Smalls, was taught the art of basket sewing during his apprenticeship approximately 10 years ago when he first went to the museum where Smalls was working at the time. Surprised at first by the basket’s prices, his initial thought was ‘wow.’ Badger then went on to spend more time with Smalls, learning about the history of the baskets. What eventually drew him in most was the educational aspect: the history of the baskets’ origin, who made the baskets and the stories that came attached to each one. These inspired him.
On this spring morning, families started approaching the two men one after another and a crowd began to gather around the table. Every one of them seemed in awe of the craftsmanship before them, commenting on the beauty of the baskets and the impressive skill required to fashion them.
With the sun still shining, a caterpillar climbing up the side of the table, families smiling and no-see-ums making themselves noticed every now and then, more and more sweetgrass left the diminishing pile as the two basket artists continued to sew.
Just as it takes years to learn and a lifetime of new ideas, each basket takes time to create. Larger baskets can take between four to five days to finish. A smaller basket only takes a few hours. It’s entirely up to the basket sewer.
Many see the basket prices and wonder how something locally and naturally-sourced can be so pricey. There are reasons why these baskets are sold and for a relatively high price and that is for more than just beauty and longevity. They are reasons others might not expect.
“Definitely the materials. The materials are very scarce,” said Smalls on the basket’s price.
The sweetgrass used to create the baskets is a peculiar grass that doesn’t grow just anywhere, so the two basket artisans must search surrounding areas, such as marshes and forests, to find the specific grasses they need. A couple of local plots of land have become available for them to share in their harvests.
In addition to sweetgrass, which is the primary material, pine needles and bulrush are used for coloring and contrast and dried palmetto fronds are used for binding.
“We harvest our own materials, as well as purchase, because usually me and Dino can’t collect enough to take us through the year,” Smalls said. “So, we have to go and purchase because we have a window period. The grasses actually grow during the spring, we harvest during the summer, it flowers during the fall and then it dies off during the winter. That process we do every year.”
The scarceness of the hand-collected materials should be enough to persuade any buyer that the price is more than worth it. However, many locals and tourists fail to take into account the meaning behind these baskets and that they can really only be found in the South Carolina Lowcountry. There is history, culture and the possibility that they might not be around for much longer. Their continuance relies on the next generation and the generations following choosing to take an interest.
“The materials, they are handmade of course. They represent a culture. So, it’s cultural. Here is really the only place you can purchase them. You just can’t go anywhere else. It has to be between this area and Charleston. That’s where all your main basketmakers are,” Smalls said. “And our generation has dwindled so much of course, most of the last generation they’ve died or passed on, so with this generation, if we don’t get another generation, this will be it.”
To help prevent the end of the sweetgrass baskets and to see them continue on for generations, Smalls and Badger lead classes for the public and visit schools within the community, teaching third graders and other ages about the history, culture and process behind making a sweetgrass basket.
“Our main goal is to teach them how to do it. Even if they decide they don’t want to do it right now,” Smalls said. “But, at least later on in life they can do it again. Like myself, I learned when I was 7. Of course, I got away from it, did my teen thing, got jobs and after, I decided, ‘Hey, I don’t want this to die.’ So, we set out to educate.”
The duo are so passionate about the art and its importance that they quit their careers and have made it their mission to educate and continue the famed tradition of sweetgrass basket sewing.
“It means a lot to me because, since I’ve actually been doing this, I’ve seen where it has bridged communities together,” Badger said. “This right here, what we’re doing right now, is an ambassador to bridge people together. That’s why it’s so important. By doing this, we have set a dialogue of communication with these baskets. These baskets have opened up so many different doors, different arenas, to meet so many different people from different parts of the world and it all started with the basket making. So, that’s why it’s so important to me that we continue this because it’s not just making a basket or making money. It’s all about communication and bringing us together.”
As Badger spoke, families watched, listened and smiled. A young boy was learning how to sew a basket from the very one Badger was working on with the artist’s nail bone hanging around the boy’s neck.
A nail bone is a tool used, now generally the severed, filed end of a spoon handle, to shape a basket and push the sweetgrass through during the sewing process.
“That’s why it’s very important to me that this art form, this craft, this art continues because it has bridged so many people together,” Badger said. “We do classes and you’d be surprised what you can learn about a person over doing a basket because while we’re doing a basket we communicate. And we’re talking and that’s a dialogue to bridge other dialogues.”
“We use these baskets as a bridge to communicate. So, it goes to a deeper depth, a greater great, a higher height when we do these baskets. It’s more than just looking at the basket, but it contributes to so much in society today. So that’s why it’s so important to me that we continue doing it because it’s a beacon of hope. It’s a beacon of light. That draws people because when they see these baskets they think, ‘Oh my God it’s so beautiful’ and they come over here and it’s like this family right here. It drew them, and now they are here looking at Michael do baskets. And now we can set a dialogue, we can talk.”
As Badger spoke, smiles crept upon the families’ faces. A woman in the group thanked Smalls and Badger for what they were doing. She spoke about how she stayed listening to him speak for so long because she was in such agreement.
This opened a conversation between the three of them about how her family had recently hosted a Chinese New Year event in New Jersey. There they had a craft, which was also a tradition hundreds of years old, that she’d grown up doing. She exclaimed she was so excited to see the baskets being made and spoke for a while about the Gullah culture and the basket-making process. She also spoke of her seeing the similarities between the sewing process and materials of the sweetgrass baskets to that of tatami, a woven Japanese floor mat made from grasses and straw.
“That’s why it’s so important that we do this because people can come from all over the world and relate to what Michael and I do,” Badger said. “It’s very rewarding to see people relate to this and connect it to their traditions. It shows that we have more in common than uncommon.”
This story was originally published April 15, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
