South Carolina Arts Commission

Arts Directory

Little Bear

INDIVIDUAL - SCAD ID - #183



Contact

littlebearkbrown@yahoo.com
803-324-1495


Discipline

  • Folklife/Traditional Arts


Geographical Availability

  • Upstate
  • Midlands

About


Catawba Indian Traditional Potter. As a young boy he grew up watching the elders of the tribe make pottery. During his teenage years he started helping his grandmother Edith Brown to dig/prepare her clay and to pit fire her finished pottery pieces. In 1976, he was a participant of a pottery class taught by his grandmother and other elderly women of the tribe. He was responsible for digging clay and firing the pieces made. During this class he made his first pottery pieces. After a career in the Army, in the mid-1990s he again worked with the elders of the tribe to refine his pottery making skills. Over the last twenty years he has emerged as a master potter in Catawba Pottery Tradition. He has demonstrated and displayed his pottery at numerous festivals, schools, universities and arts centers throughout the southeast. He has worked as an artist-in-residence at schools and universities. Today his work is sought by collectors, universities and arts centers.