Lucreaty Clark, White Oak Basket Maker

The Interviews

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

1. Kristin Congdon & Tina Bucuvalas, Just Above the Water: Florida Folk Arts, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006.
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
3. Lucreaty Clark, interview by Peggy Bulger, Lamont, Florida, 1980.