Southern Makers
The Gourd Artists, and the South's Oldest Halloween
Before the pumpkin, there was the gourd. Southern hands have dried, carved, and painted them for centuries, keeping an old craft alive.
Southern Makers
Artisans, small businesses, and things made by hand.
Latest in Southern Makers
Southern Makers
The Face Jugs of the Southern Hills
The face jug is one of the South's strangest folk objects: a pottery vessel with a wild, grimacing face. Deep roots, and potters keep it alive.
Southern Makers
The Chair Caners, and the Seats That Outlast Us
A caned seat wears out in a generation, but a good caner makes it whole again, weaving through the same holes his grandfather's chairs used.
More in Southern Makers
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The White Oak Basket Makers of Appalachia A few mountain hands can still turn a living white oak into a basket that outlasts its maker. It begins not with weaving but with a tree. -
The Blacksmith, and the Oldest Fire in Town There was a time every Southern town had a forge at its heart. The smiths still working by hand keep alive one of the oldest crafts there is. -
The Dulcimer Makers, and the Sound That Came Down the Mountains The Appalachian dulcimer is the rare American instrument, born in the mountain South. The people who still build them by hand keep a whole tradition alive. -
The Decoy Carvers of the Southern Coast A working duck decoy is just a block of wood carved into a bird, but on the Southern coast it carries three hundred years of craft handed down. -
Seagrove, Where the Clay Remembers In a rural pocket of North Carolina, more than a hundred potters work the same red clay their predecessors dug 250 years ago. -
The Boatbuilders of Bayou La Batre For a few decades, one small Alabama town built more shrimp trawlers than almost anywhere on earth. Bayou La Batre's story is the story of the working Gulf.