Catawba Nation
March 1, 2025 - August 31, 2025
Third Floor Mezzanine Gallery
Opening Celebration
Saturday, March 1 | 7 PM
Eric Canty, Vase, Hickory Museum of Art Collection, Museum purchase, 2016.
Exhibition Features:
• Catawba River that “flows” through the gallery
• 13 larger-than-life portraits of Catawba Nation members by photographer Randy Bacon, accompanied by their first-person stories
• Catawba pottery by Nation members continuing the tradition
• HMA Collection Spotlight on Eric Canty
Photograph of Grace Richey. © Randy Bacon
The Catawba have lived on their ancestral lands along the banks of the Catawba River dating back at least 6,000 years. Before contact with the Europeans it is believed that the Nation inhabited most of the Piedmont area of South Carolina, North Carolina and parts of Virginia. Early counts of the Catawba people made by Spanish explorers estimated the population of the tribe at the time as between 15,000-25,000. After settlers arrived in the area, two rounds of smallpox decimated the tribe’s numbers, and by 1849 the once large group was down to under 100 citizens. Now there are currently over 3,300 enrolled members of the Nation. The Catawba have a long history and a rich culture that lives on today.
An unbroken chain of pottery production has helped preserve a cultural identity that was nearly lost after European settlement. Traditionally, women made pottery; but when the population declined so severely, everybody had to make pottery. This activity helped maintain community traditions and is now one of the purest folk art forms in this country.
Utilizing clay dug near the Catawba River, the Catawbas’ methods of production are nearly unchanged since the Woodland (1000 B.C.E.–600 C.E.) and Mississippian (600–1600 C.E.) periods. It is the oldest continuously practiced traditional art form found east of the Mississippi River. This unbroken tradition helped preserve the cultural identity of the Catawba and restore their Federal status that was taken during the Termination Act.
Catawba pottery is handbuilt using traditional coiling techniques. Handles and legs are attached by riveting, pushing the attachment through a hole pierced in the pot. This technique creates features that will not break-off easily. Once pots are air dried, the surface is scraped even with a piece of bone, antler, or a knife and then burnished to a shine with a smooth river stone (or other favorite object). Decoration, if desired, is then incised into the surface. Firing is often in two stages. A fire is built in a pit and the pots placed near it to heat. Then the warmed pots are placed in the pit to complete the process. Smoke from the burning wood creates distinctive patterns on the surfaces of the pots. Glazes are not used.
