By Southern Hands: A Celebration of Craft Traditions in the South

By Jan Arnow

Green cloth, First Edition stated, hardcover in dust jacket. Numerous color photographs. The author traveled over 50, 000 miles across Southern bayous and backroads, side streets and savannahs to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0848707117
• ISBN13: 9780848707118
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Oxmoor House
• Length: 237 Pages
• Weight: 3.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 10.1" x 10.1"

Customer Reviews

Respect for tradition

With the exception of a few absent categories -- one of them shockingly absent -- "By Southern Hands" is a sensitively done, reasonably representative survey of Southern handicraft traditions. Jan Arnow does discuss the issue: Is it art or craft? The answer to this is of no consequence to me, but her selection is certainly skewed toward the arty craft. The photographic illustrations are mostly excellent, and the interviews with the craftsmen, although short, are respectful and accurate. Arnow has gone out into the byways and turned up some local traditions that even a well-traveled native Southerner (like me) might not have encountered. Here's what's in here: basket making; chair making; wood carving (walking canes, effigies, Cherokee masks, decoys); toys and dolls; spinning, dyeing and weaving; sports and games (like stickball rackets); wood working (as opposed, to carving -- like dulcimers and boats); sewing and quilting; broom making; metal working (including wrought iron); leather craft (including saddles); and pottery and tile making. There is also a good resource list of places and publications. That's a long list, so what's left out? Gunsmithing and gunstock carving (the shockingly absent one since it is found everywhere in the South); fishing lures; and furniture other than ladderback chairs.