Woodturning

Season 3 • Episode 7

Chickasaw Culture Keepers

Every time Chickasaw artist Vicki Somers sees a discarded piece of wood while out on a hike or camping expedition, she begins to imagine the potential forms that she can craft from it. A master of the traditional art of woodturning, Somers feels she is the instrument to find the spirit in the wood and draw it out. She credits her Chickasaw heritage for her attraction to the art, which she employs to make beautiful pieces like segmented wooden bowls, cedar boxes and writing instruments out of discarded bits of lumber. For Somers, shaping her artworks is a meditative experience during which she communes with the spirit of the wood. By teaching woodturning to young people, she hopes to get more Chickasaws interested and keep it from becoming a lost art.

EPISODES

3m 30s

Woodturning

EPISODES

Pottery

Stickball Sticks

Beading

Regalia

Metalsmithing

Shell Carving

Weaving

Horticulture

Baskets

Traditional Foods

Quilting

Flutes

Beaded Collars

Drum Making

Storytelling

Bow Making

Brent Greenwood Art

Beaded Jewelry

Flint Knapping

Stomp Dancing

Beadwork

Turkey Calls

Traditional Stories: How Day and Night Were Divided

Woodturning

Bead Artisan

Textile Art

Quilt Making

Jewelry

The Legacy of Bow Making

Bead Artistry

Painting

Woven Mats

Metalworking

Photography

Pashofa

Deer Toe Shakers

Stickball Sticks

Shell Carving

Medicine Bags

Natural Dyes

Twinning

Bladesmithing

Fish Nets

Porcupine Quillwork

Pottery Burnishing

Shell Carving

Duck Decoys

Traditional Arrows

Fine Gourd Art

Traditional Flutes

Turtle Pottery

Turtle Shell Shakers

Pucker Toe Moccasins

Chunkey

Tattoos and War Paint

Leggings and Breechcloths

Hide Brain Tanning

River Cane Harvesting, Splitting and Peeling

Stories of Kullihoma

History of Beads