Current Recipients

Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award

2025 Recipient

Mary Caroleen Sanders

Artist, Catawba Pottery | Catawba Indian Reservation, Rock Hill

Headshot of Caroleen Sanders, a Catawba woman with short, salt and pepper hair wearing eye glasses. She is seated, resting her chin on her right hand balled into a fist.Mary “Caroleen” Sanders (2025) was an artist who made traditional Catawba pottery, the oldest known artform of the Catawba Nation that dates back more than 6,000 years. As many Catawbas before her, Sanders learned to make Catawba pottery watching her mother, Verde Harris Sanders, work with clay. She leaned on the techniques learned from her mother, honoring the tradition while also taking it to new heights.

Sanders only began working with pottery herself in the early 1990s. Despite only starting pottery in her late adulthood, she quickly mastered the artform to become a master potter and exceptional artist, transforming the traditional shapes and basic pots of the past to truly magnificent pieces of art. She is known for her intricate sculpting and fine burnishing techniques used to make animals come to life in her pottery. Some of her most impressive pieces feature snakes wrapped artfully around the rims of pitchers and bowls.

Her pottery is featured in many museums in the state and beyond. One was donated to Catawba Nation Archives as a legacy piece of her work. An exhibition at the Columbia Museum of Art showcased other talents; several busts Sanders completed of other Catawbas on display. The busts highlight Sanders’ unique, high level of artistry—no other Catawba artist has created images of people out of Catawba clay.

Within the Catawba community and among the public at-large, Sanders will long be known as a master Catawba potter. She was highly sought after by the community as a teacher and demonstrator. She was the artist-in-residence at the Native American Studies Center in Lancaster and she frequently taught classes, always full, at the Catawba Cultural Center where other Catawba citizens learned from her wisdom and personal techniques. She worked as a mentor to apprentice potters to pass her knowledge on so that this traditional artform continues through the generations.

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