Five generations of Gullah Geechee Heritage and museum-quality sweetgrass basketweaving.
“All of the love goes into each basket,” says Gullah Geechee Master Sweetgrass Basket Weaver Jery Taylor. “(For my family) to be doing this craft for all this time (now more than 300 years), you could still see this weave, these same patterns in the baskets in West Africa. That, by itself, is incredible.”
Her deft, perfectly manicured fingers (nails painted with blue tips, by the way, and with beautiful swirls and embellishments) hold a tight spiral of bulrushes and weave them together with a strip of palm frond as she speaks. Her tool is the handle of a dinner spoon shortened and trimmed for the purpose.
“Originally it was animal bone to create the path for the palm ribbon, then a hammered nail. But when you’re working out on the patio and you drop a bone or a nail, it goes right through the boards. When you drop a spoon the bowl catches and you don’t have to crawl under the porch.”
She is nearly 80 years of wisdom, spark, beauty and Gullah Geechee history wrapped in a beguiling package that nearly demands you sit at her feet and listen.
“My grandmother taught me the Sweetgrass baskets (on Boone Hall Plantation in Mt Pleasant, S.C.),” she says. “I learned bulrush weaving from my dear friend Jannie Cohen, a descendent of the Penn School on St. Helena Island. My grandmother though, she was the one who insisted each weave be tight and precise. If it wasn’t, you pulled out the whole thing and did it again.”
Ms. Jery’s family has been selling baskets for five generations. She learned to weave before she could read. But it wasn’t until her early 30s that she realized the true value of the craft, the history… She then pursued Sweetgrass Basket Weaving as a career.
Her work has been featured on HGTV, on the Discovery Channel and in countless magazines and publications.
Her baskets are even on display in museums such as the African American Heritage Museum at the Smithsonian. You can see them in person along with her bowls, trays, paintings and other work at her shop in Savannah’s City Market or at the Penn Center or the Gullah Grub Restaurant in Beaufort, S.C.
“You’re not gonna find many young people who want to learn this craft,” she says. “It takes too long, it’s too much work. But I’m proud and honored to carry on the traditions of my Gullah Geechee family.”
Want to know more? Read this Savannah.com article from 2016 or Search ‘Jery’s Sweetgrass Baskets’ on any online search engine and prepare to be amazed.
By Reneé LaSalle
Jery’s Sweetgrass Baskets Savannah
307 W. St. Julian St.
Upper Level, Studio FSU-4A
(843) 599-5059
