Martha, Chelsea, and Andrea (left to right), 3 generations of Gullah Geechee Basket Weavers
Learn the basics of sweetgrass basket weaving with three generations of Gullah Geechee women from South Carolina who have kept this family tradition alive, all the way from Senegal and Sierra Leone, Africa.
Martha Cayetano, Andrea Cayetano-Jefferson, and daughter Chelsea Cayetano will lead these exciting hands-on workshops and offer a brief talk about the history and cultural impact of this beautiful craft. You will most certainly have a blast with these spirited women, as well as settle into a meditative rhythm with an ancient and engaging skill!
This popular workshop keeps selling out so quickly that we have added yet another class! To find out more info or order your tickets click below.
WHEN: NOW FOUR CLASS OPTIONS!
WHERE: Circle Studios - 62 Plains Rd, New Paltz
Kick-off class (only) will include organic soup, salad, bread and tea!:
This workshop is presented by Circle Creative Collective as part of our second annual Sankofa: Honoring the past, empowering the present, dreaming the future.
Andrea and Chelsea learned their skills from the family’s living matriarch and renowned basket weaver, Martha Cayetano-Howard, (Andrea’s Mother) who is a fifth-generation basketweaver. She was taught to weave by her mother Rosa Barnwell Graddick, who was taught by her mother Martha Barnwell. Martha Cayetano grew up weaving sweetgrass baskets with her siblings and sold them along Highway 17N in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. In the early 1980s, Martha got a booth in the Charleston City Market where you can still find her weaving most days along with her daughter, Andrea Cayetano Jefferson. Sweetgrass basket weaving is one of the oldest African art forms in the United States. The baskets are made from plants harvested by their family—including sweetgrass, bulrush, and long needle pine—and are woven together with strips of palmetto. The family’s work is on display in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Basket weaving is one of the oldest African art forms in the United States. The Gullah Geechee people are African Americans who have maintained a culture rich in African influences and have been creating baskets for generations in South Carolina and Georgia, and originally as far reaching as North Carolina and Florida. They make them using local plants wild harvested by hand—including sweetgrass, bulrush, and long needle pine—and woven together with strips of palmetto.
(*Pay what you can or pay it forward, no one will be turned away. If you need tuition assistance, please email us: info@circlecreativecollective.org)
