Qualla Boundary in NC: Promoting Indigenous Art While Preserving Cherokee Heritage
- mountainwaterfilms
- Oct 3, 2022
- 1 min read
Updated: May 9
The Cherokee Nation has been making art in western North Carolina longer than anyone else. That history is not past tense.
Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual in Cherokee is one of the oldest Native-owned cooperative galleries in the country. General Grant's work, Mary Thompson's baskets, Matthew Tooni's storytelling: these are living traditions, not museum pieces.
What is art today was craft yesterday. The baskets had a purpose. The masks had a ceremony. Today's artists carry that weight and choose, deliberately, to keep going.
The Oconaluftee Indian Village and the Museum of the Cherokee Indian give you the context. The artists give you everything else.
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