artist list

Cooking Pot 6" x 7 "

Artist Biography:

Keith Brown learned the Catawba pottery tradition early in life from his grandmother, Edith Harris and later became a student in the Catawba Indian Pottery Class of 1976. In 1995, Brown joined the staff of the Catawba Cultural Center and was appointed Exhibits Coordinator. The artist obtained a grant to fund a major exhibit on the re-emergence of male potters among the Catawba and was instrumental in the return of the Sweat Lodge to the Catawba Nation. In 1997, he was a participant in the first class conducted by the South Carolina Institute of Community Scholars in the Traditional Arts.

Keith Brown

Catawba Reservation, Rock Hill

Keith Brown's work is represented at:

Catawba Indian Pottery

About the Work:

No one knows the true age of the Catawba Indian Pottery tradition. Among Native American potters' arts it is near the oldest in the Northern Hemisphere. Today, linguists declare that the Catawba Indians are aboriginal to the Carolinas. The oldest American Indian pottery tradition recorded in the United States is located in Coastal Carolina and Georgia. Archaeologists date this ancient Indian pottery from around 2,400 B.C

The Catawba Indian Potters have been identified with clay for many centuries. Clay is the life blood of the Catawba Indian Nation. The pottery seen here is created from clay harvested from the Catawba riverbanks on the Catawba Reservation outside of Rock Hill, SC. After being shaped and burnished with a rubbing rock, the pieces are burned in bonfire on a day that is still and sunny. The burning process is an all day affair.