Ruralite Cafe: Published 08/23/01

By Rose Hooper - Features Editor

We've lost another link to our past, culture

"I was too busy playing to pay any attention to my Mamma; I had other, much more important ­ or so I thought ­ things to do," this Cherokee master potter told me in March when I went to talk to her about winning the Distinguished Women of North Carolina Award.

Isn't that just the way with most of us? Don't you have a parent, grandparent or older relative you wished you had paid more attention to? Like one who could teach you the secrets of softening clay into a magnificent wedding urn, resplendent in its significance and tradition?

As Louise got older, she got smarter. She started writing down the traditions to preserve her sixth-generation Cherokee pottery heritage, tracing it back to Ewi Katalsta, whose works are featured in the Smithsonian Institution.

Louise died last Wednesday, Aug. 15, at the age of 69. But because of the work of her hands, both in creating pottery and writing down traditions, she preserved her family ­ and Cherokee ­ heritage for many generations to come.

Those same hands wrote this following poem describing herself. She shared it with me when I talked to her in March, and now I share it with you. Fittingly, it's called "The Potter."

I am a Cherokee potter

With my hands I create

With my mind I create

with soft clay I create.

As a child I created

As a young lady my mind drifted.

As I grow older the spirits of creating

kept telling me to go back to the old ways.

The spirit became so strong I returned

to the old ways.

The art of pottery had never left my mind

What I learned as a child I never forgot.

Many years have passed by

I have learned new ways of firing pottery

I am the creator of the black pottery

and the Cherokee alphabet designs.

Some designs are old

Some are new

Someday my children will create.

The art of Cherokee pottery will live on

Through my children.

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