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Brief
History of Lucreaty Clark (1904-1986)
Lucreaty
Clark was born in Lamont, Florida, in 1904. Here she learned to make white
oak baskets from her parents. Her mother and father originally made white
oak baskets for use on the North Florida plantation where they lived and
worked. Oak splint baskets were primarily used on plantations in north
and north-central Florida, an area where white oak trees are naturally
found.
To make a
basket, Clark would start by finding a white oak tree of a specific size
and width. Once a tree had been selected and cut down, Clark would split
the white oak logs into thin strips or "splits." White oak splits are
naturally pliable and do not need to be soaked in water to make them softer,
as with other woods. After trimming the splits with a knife, Clark would
weave the basket from the bottom up. There were no formal plans to guide
her, nor were any measurements taken during the process. The final step
was finishing the rim.
Clark described
white oak basketry in great detail in several interviews conducted by
the Florida Folklife Program in 1979 and 1980. She also discussed her
life, including games she played as a child, food she remembered eating,
her family, and her religious beliefs. Florida folklorist Peggy Bulger
served as the interviewer and photographer. Folklife Program staff compiled
photographs and selections from these interviews to create a slide-tape
show called It'll Be Gone When I'm Gone; that slide-tape show is
the source of the sounds and images on this web page.
When the
recordings were made, Lucreaty Clark was the last known living white oak
basket maker in the state of Florida. During the interview, she stated
that the tradition would probably disappear once she died. But soon afterwards,
Clark's grandson Alphonso Jennings began to learn the specialized basketry.
In 1984, shortly before Clark died, Jennings completed an apprenticeship
program with his grandmother sponsored by the Florida Folklife Program.
Since that time, Jennings has gained a national reputation for making
durable, finely crafted, functional baskets. His work also represents
the essence of folklife: living traditions passed down from one generation
to the next.
Sources
- Kristin
Congdon & Tina Bucuvalas, Just Above the Water: Florida Folk Arts, Jackson:
University Press of Mississippi, forthcoming 2005.
- Robert
Stone, "Lucreaty Clark and Alphonso Jennings: White Oak Baskets." In
Florida Folklife:Traditional Arts in Contemporary Communities, ed. S.
Stuempfle (Miami: Historical Association of Southern Florida, Inc.,
1998), 54.
- Lucreaty
Clark, interview by Peggy Bulger, Lamont, Florida, 1980.
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