Sweetgrass Basket Man

For many years, Joseph Foreman was a man on the run. His demon was South Carolina, and a life without much direction. His intention was to find the good life anywhere but here. So he ran - all the way to New York City. He came home once, but according to Foreman, it didn't last long. Something haunted him here, so after a few months, he went back to New York, only to isolate himself from his parents, brothers and sisters. "I decided I wasn't coming back. I just didn't want to see South Carolina ever again," said Foreman.

One day in November of 1991, he was at work at Dave's Quality Kosher Meats on West 15th Street when the phone rang. "My mom called me," Foreman continued. "We had a chat on the phone, but it was strange. I hadn't heard from her in so long and after so many years, it was difficult to bring the mother and son relationship back together to that moment. But we did. Then my mother started telling me my whole life's story over the phone. She had a vision for my life, and it scared me. She told me I needed to come home, that my destiny was in South Carolina."

During the conversation with his mother, Foreman learned that his sister, Mary Foreman Jackson, had a display of her sweetgrass baskets on exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art just a few blocks away. It was Mary who had tracked down Foreman's younger brother, shook Joe's secret telephone number out of him, and provided it to their mother.

Going home again is not what Foreman really wanted to do. But he sensed his mother's urgency and decided to surprise her with a visit for Thanksgiving at the end of the month. When he arrived in Charleston on Thanksgiving Day, he stepped off the Amtrak train to the waiting arms of his brother and sister, and the news that his mother had died two hours prior to his arrival. Foreman was devastated. And the vision Foreman's mother had about his life remained a mystery.

Having reconnected with his family, Foreman decided he'd give Charleston another try. He began working at his father's heavy equipment company, thinking that was what his mother saw in his future. "Working with my dad, learning how to operate all those backhoes, and dump trucks and bulldozers, it was aggravating to both of us. I was frustrated. I was feeling disappointed. I was thinking about going back to New York."

One day Foreman's sister, Mary, invited him to ride along with her. She was scheduled to exhibit her baskets at art shows in a number of states, and convinced her brother to ride along.

"Making sweetgrass baskets was something that had been in my family for generations," explained Foreman. "It was a child's curiosity, watching my mother make them. It's like anything else. You watch a parent doing something, and after a while you just start doing it, too. That's how baskets are in a family. You just get involved."

Foreman hadn't thought much about making baskets since his childhood days, but the time he spent with his sister gave him an opportunity to examine her work, and to fall in love with the art all over again.

"When I saw her baskets, they amazed me," Foreman said. "So I'd sit and watch her work. She didn't try to teach me, I just watched."

It was sister Mary who laid the ultimate challenge at his feet. "'Brother,' she said to me one day. 'You can do this.' That was the last thing I expected to hear."

Foreman began running again, but this time it was away from himself, and took the form of a self-induced seclusion from his family. One day he ran across an old metal basket-making tool he'd stolen from his mother as a child, the one with the rose carved in the handle. As he held the tool, the one that had belonged to his sweet mother everyone called "Rose," it was all the inspiration he needed. He finally knew what his mother had wanted for him all along.

He began by making mats from the sea grasses he collected from the marsh and dried himself. Then he copied some of his mother's pieces, starting with the simple and working up to the more complex, pulling them apart when they weren't perfect, putting them back together until he was satisfied. For a year, he hid in his cocoon, not wanting to face the world until he was confident in his new life. But one day, his dad knocked on his door. "When my dad saw my baskets, he couldn't believe his eye," said Foreman. "He was proud of me."

From morning until night, making baskets was what he did, just like his mother, and his grandmother, and his great grandmother, and his great, great grandfather. Foreman is quick to point out that the tradition of making seagrass baskets can be traced back to Africa, and to an art performed predominantly by men. Foreman finds comfort in that knowledge - that he is one of the few men preserving an art that expresses the Gullah culture and heritage of his ancestors.

Over the last decade, Foreman's art has taken on a distinctive style all its own. In addition to sweetgrass and pine needles, he includes a lot of bulrush, a heftier seagrass material, in many of his works. With the various materials, and special drying methods, Foreman captures rich, but subtle colors that he swirls through his baskets. "I can do things I have never seen other basket makers do," he confesses. "It is like God is in my hand, molding them as fast as I can make them. It still blows my mind."

Today, Foreman's work can be found all over the country. He's often invited to exhibit his work at colleges and museums, and also finds time to teach those eager to learn the fine art of basket making. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm for basket making is waning. Of his own three children and all his nephews and nieces, he confesses there is not one interested in carrying on the tradition. But Foreman believes the spark may be alive in his nine-year-old grandson, Stephen. "He comes from New York to stay with me during the summer," Foreman said. "For the past three years, he's been making baskets."

As is his family tradition, Joseph Foreman has a vision for his grandson's life.

Anyone wishing to see Mr. Foreman's work may contact him by calling (843) 554-9243.

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