Pottery: bowl

This 1979 photograph, most likely made by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, shows a blackware pottery bowl made by Louise Bigmeat Maney (1932-2001). This bowl, with carved base, was made in 1973 and was featured in the brochure, “Designs in pottery by the Bigmeat Family,” that accompanied an exhibition of their work in 1979 (Identifier QACM_BigmeatPottery_01_01). Louise Bigmeat was raised on Wrights Creek in the Painttown community of Cherokee, North Carolina. A member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, she was a third-generation potter. While she was a young child, she and her two sisters began making pottery with their mother, Charlotte Welch Bigmeat (1887-1959). Louise Bigmeat married John Henry Maney and, together they established Bigmeat House of Pottery. In 1979, the Indian Arts and Crafts Board and Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual organized an exhibiton of pottery by the Bigmeat sisters; in 1998, Louise Bigmeat Maney received a North Carolina Folk Heritage Award