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1 of 1977 Bernadine George

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Name	George, Bernadine
Life Dates	March 14, 1944- Nov. 14, 2016
Nationality	Native American (Eastern Band Cherokee)
Geographic location(s)	Cherokee, NC (Qualla Boundary)
Occupation	Potter Ceramicist Female artist
Notes	Bernadine George grew up around traditional pottery making. She observed her mother, a potter, at work, and absorbed some of her instincts and techniques by observation. When, as a young adult, she decided to take up pottery herself, it was her sister-in-law who taught her to create and fire pinch pots. George developed her pottery skills over the years, in the spare moments she could grab while working and raising a family. She became a highly accomplished potter, well respected in the community of traditional Cherokee artists. In 2002, Bernadine George was one of several potters involved in a workshop sponsored by the Museum of the Cherokee Indian and the Research Laboratories of Archaeology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in which artists and scholars gathered to learn about the Cherokee people’s ancient, forgotten pottery styles. Inspired by the gathering, George and other potters began to experiment, learning by trial and error the techniques used by their ancestors who made strong, thin-walled pots with paddle-stamped designs on the sides. George mastered many of the ancestral methods, and as an artist, teacher, and founding member of the Cherokee Potters Guild, she became an influential figure in the revival of ancient Cherokee pottery traditions.
Role	Artist

Related Records

1. 2019.15 - Vessel

   Round bowl decorated with a "complicated stamped" design on the entire exterior, created by stamping wet clay with carved wooden paddles. Bernadine George (1944-2016) is a noted Cherokee ceramicist who learned to make pots from her mother and sister-in-law. She is particularly known for helping to revive the stamped pottery tradition in which carved wooden paddles are used to stamp decorative designs on clay as a part of her work with the Cher...

   Record Type: Object