Amanda Swimmer

Amanda Swimmer

Artisans

Cherokee pottery

Cherokee women

Handicraft

Manners and customs

Potters

This undated photograph by an unknown photographer is of Amanda Sequoyah Swimmer, 1921-2018, a self-taught potter of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The youngest of 12 children, Swimmer was born and raised in the Straight Fork section of Big Cove, a remote section of the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina. For many years, she worked at Oconaluftee Indian Village, where she was originally hired to demonstrate finger weaving. She quickly switched to pottery, learning from fellow demonstrators. Swimmer uses traditional techniques and tools, never a potter’s wheel. She presses designs onto the surface of the clay with wooden paddles or incises linear designs using a sharp stick. The subtle coloration on her pots comes from burning them with different types of wood. In this close-up photograph, Swimmer is incising a design around the base of a bowl with a sharpened wood stick.

Amberg, Rob

Photograph Collection

Hunter Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC 28723

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

jpg;

photographs

eng

StillImage

11643

https://southernappalachiandigitalcollections.org/object/11643

2010-02-19

All rights reserved. For permissions and use, contact Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, Inc., Cherokee, NC 28719;

Qualla Boundary

Appalachian Region, Southern

8" x 10"(dimension)

Cherokee Traditions