Cherokee Heritage Trails

Shirley Jackson Oswalt does beadwork, carves designs on gourds, and makes white oak baskets. She demonstrates these crafts at festivals and schools, and can also teach hands-on workshops. She can also lecture about Cherokee crafts in general, for example, explaining how blowguns are made. Shirley grows the gourds that she carves as well as the corn beads she uses in beadwork. Other natural materials such as vines and seeds are incorporated into her work. A native speaker of the Cherokee language, she can lecture on and provide workshops about the language.

Born at home in the Snowbird Community, Shirley Jackson Oswalt grew up attending the Snowbird Indian School. This was not a boarding school, but a small Indian community school, and she describes it as a really good experience. "They taught us to do the very best we could in whatever we did. And they taught us to keep our Cherokee language." Shirley also learned traditional crafts from her family. When she was a child, she watched her mother weave baskets and do beadwork. Later she learned more about beadwork from her sister-in-law. "I try to learn a little bit of everything," she says.

Shirley Jackson Oswalt has demonstrated beadwork and basketry, taught workshops, and provided programs at schools in her own community and throughout North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. She has participated in many festivals, including the Fading Voices Festival in Snowbird, the Cherokee Voices Festival at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, and the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum Festival in Tennessee. She is a member of the Seven Clans Art Guild.

Shirley Jackson Oswalt is willing to travel and to work with groups of all ages. Travel expenses should be compensated. Her fee is negotiable, but payment should also include the expense of materials for hands-on workshops.