Tennessee folklife
I got a chance to talk today with Dr. Robert Cogswell, Director of Folklife for the Tennessee Arts Commission. I came away from our conversation feeling like folk artists in Tennessee really have a knowledgeable and caring advocate with this guy.
Somewhere in a sampling of different arts by region, Robert tells me he’s been to a lot of funerals of skilled Tennessee folk artists in recent years. Robert told me, for example, that a lot of white oak basket weavers have passed.
According to the photo caption for the photo to the right, Ida Pearl Davis, who passed away in 2007, revived her artistic career in white oak basket making “later in life with encouragement from her devoted daughter and apprentice Thelma Hibdon.”
Robert reminded me close to the end of our conversation that I wouldn’t find much about these and more amazing people on Google. He told me I’d have to get out in the state and find them.
