Cherokee Heritage Trails

General Grant gives lectures and workshops on Cherokee spirituality and medicine, woodcarving, silversmithing, bone and antler carving, flint knapping, drum making, primitive technology, and making reproductions of traditional artifacts. He is also an accomplished powwow dancer and is pictured here in powwow regalia.

General Grant grew up in East Tennessee in a family of eight children. His mother was a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. His father, a Lakota Sioux, gave him the name "General" in honor of General Ulysses S. Grant. "Both of my parents were artists by necessity," he says, "because whatever they needed, they made. Today, those things they made are considered art." At the age of fifteen, General Grant moved back to Cherokee and eventually settled there and started his own family. When he was injured doing carpentry work, he turned to the art forms he had learned from his parents as a way to earn a living and support his family.

Today, General Grant is owner and operator of the Traditional Hands Art Gallery and Studio in Cherokee, a working studio where visitors can purchase traditional and contemporary Indian art and talk with the artist. He has received awards for his work in many places including the Hunter Mountain Art Show, the Mohegan Powwow, the Pequot Powwow at Foxwoods Casino, and at White Wolf Presents. As a founding member of the Seven Clans Art Guild in Cherokee, he participates in shows and demonstration sponsored by the guild.

General Grant works with groups ranging in age from kindergartners to senior citizens, and he will present lectures and hands-on workshops designed for groups with special interests. His fee is negotiable and he is willing to travel if expenses are reimbursed. For hands-on workshops, he needs good lighting. If traveling outside the United States, he will need customs clearance for his materials.