Rachel Greene, Author at West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Recycling Never Sounded So Good: Appalachian Luthiers Turn Cardboard And Tin Cans Into Musical Instruments

Jon Cooley has been making dulcimers for 25 years. He has sold hundreds of his instruments and hosted workshops at music festivals, mostly in Western North Carolina.

But, there is one thing that makes his dulcimers stand out. They are made of cardboard.

“I just started making them one day,” Cooley said. “I was out of work, I lost my job as a counselor, so I was like ‘I have to start doing something here’.”

This was in the mid-1990s, but Cooley’s journey began in the early 1980s. That was when he bought his first cardboard dulcimer kit at a music festival in New York. He discovered cardboard dulcimers were easy and cheap to make – they seemed perfect for kids and families who might not be able to afford instruments. So he started his own cardboard dulcimer business and began making dulcimers and teaching workshops.

Cooley’s dulcimers range in size and can be nearly 3-feet long. Unlike the hourglass-shaped Appalachian dulcimers, Cooley’s dulcimers are rectangular. He leaves some of them unpainted, so other people can customize them, with wolves, hummingbirds or flowers.

Cooley’s cardboard dulcimers range in size. The largest “D” model is nearly 3-feet long.

Cooley’s cardboard of choice is thick, recycled refrigerator boxes. This makes his instruments affordable, and durable.

“They’re easy to make and easy to play,” Cooley said. “You can build them with kids.”

Of course, a cardboard dulcimer will not sound exactly like a wooden dulcimer.

“It’s not as crispy. I would say a wooden dulcimer is more crispy,” Cooley said. “Cardboard is a little more mellow.”

But do not mistake the cardboard dulcimer for a toy. It actually follows a long line of homemade or do-it-yourself Appalachian instruments. Appalachian Studies professor and folklorist Mark Freed says ingenuity has driven instrument design in Appalachia for centuries.

“When you think of this region, it’s often like, ‘Oh, people here are holding on to these old traditions and the bearers of these old traditions’ and that kind of thing, but really they were inventive and cutting edge,” Freed said.

Take the Appalachian dulcimer — they were introduced to popular culture in the 1960s by folk musicians in New York City and mass-produced soon after.

But Freed says long before that, when the dulcimer was first introduced to Western North Carolina, community members built them based on a paper pattern.

“The story of that is that there was a guy who came through this area, right around the late 1800s or turn of the century, and he had a dulcimer,” Freed said. “One of the local community members traced a pattern of that dulcimer, and that pattern got passed around and people in this area were making lap dulcimers.”

From there, community members were able to innovate and make instruments their own. And as we see with Cooley, instrument makers and Appalachians are still innovating.

Appalachian instruments were often distinct because instrument-makers had to deal with limited resources. Freed says the fretless mountain banjo is another example of this innovation.

Peterson’s fretless mountain banjos are all made to order and he has customers all around the globe. To date, he’s made nearly 730 banjos.

“The mountain-style banjo, you know, has the smaller head, because this was the size of a stovepipe, or maybe of a coffee can,” Freed said. “People were using what was available to them.”

In Boone, North Carolina, John Peterson is a renowned mountain banjo maker who still builds instruments by this ethos.

“The mountain banjos are a little more primitive or homemade looking than a factory banjo,” Peterson said.

Peterson has been making fretless mountain banjos for over a decade now. He learned to make banjos by watching other master banjo-makers and studying banjos he owned.

Peterson did not set out to make mountain banjos, he just wanted to play them in local bands while he lived in Fargo, North Dakota. Peterson says his fretless banjos and old-time music style made him a novelty in Fargo. Not many people had seen the unique instruments, which are typically found in Appalachia and the South. He remembers one night, an audience member approached him after he played in a coffee shop.

“This guy came up to me after the show and he asked me if I would build him ‘one of those,’ and I never built anything like that before, but I told him I would,” Peterson said.

So Peterson set out, studying banjos he owned from other local builders. The end result was a plywood banjo. It did the job, and since then he has made more than 700 banjos. But Peterson’s fretless banjos are not exactly like the ones one might find even 50 years ago. For example, he uses large #10 cans from restaurants as a combination tone ring and tension hoop. This is in lieu of a stove pipe.

Since stove pipes are not common anymore, Peterson says it makes sense to get the large cans from restaurants for free to use in their place. He is also happy to stick with calf and goat skins on the banjo head instead of squirrel or even groundhog skins, which were used for mountain banjos in the past. No matter the material he uses, Peterson’s dedication to preserving the craft and the unique form of the mountain banjo remains.

Peterson also makes other homemade instruments, like the “can-jo,” a scaled-down version of a banjo that uses a coffee can or tin can for the head. Some canjos only have a single string, but some canjos can have a fretboard, like a full-size banjo or guitar.

The canjo is mostly used as a craft project for kids, but folklorist Mark Freed said it follows in the spirit of Appalachian musical traditions, just like the cardboard dulcimer.

“People were resourceful,” Freed said. “If you wanted to be entertained, you entertained yourself.”

Cherokee Artists Hold Family, Land And Community In Handmade Baskets

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians have been making baskets for centuries. While it is an old artform, basket makers are resilient — adapting to changes not only in their craft, but their traditions too.

From imagining new designs to dealing with hard-to-come-by materials, basket makers are dedicated to keeping their craft alive. In a special report as part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Project, Rachel Greene spoke with two women in Cherokee, North Carolina, doing just that.

A Natural Talent

Some artists hone their skills in classrooms. Others, like Betty Maney, are practically born into their art. She is a small woman, with a kind, round face and short grey hair. She is a renowned weaver of white oak and river cane baskets, and a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee.

Like many other Cherokee basket makers, she learned her art by watching her mother, shadowing her as she gathered her materials. “When mom went out to cut her tree down, we went with her. We were with her in everything she did.”

“One day my mom says, ‘You need to start making baskets, because if you don’t start making and learning how to weave baskets, it’s gonna die out.'”-Betty Maney

Maney and her siblings were also there when their mom cut the tree into thin, pliable splints. She remembers her mom would lay a scrap of blue jean fabric on her lap and whittle the splints down until they were smooth and ready to be dyed and woven.

Maney, who works out of her home studio in Cherokee, North Carolina, started making baskets in the mid-1990s. Her mom, Geraldine Walkingstick, was a well-known basket maker and encouraged Maney to pick up basketry, too.

“One day my mom says, ‘You need to start making baskets, because if you don’t start making and learning how to weave baskets, it’s gonna die out.’”

Weaving also allowed Maney to make extra money for her family. She got her start with white oak, her mom’s signature material. She was a natural. Years of watching her mom taught Maney nearly everything she needed to know.

“Looking back, I realized it’s amazing how I already knew,” she says.

Keeping A Legacy Alive

According to research conducted by scholar Sarah H. Hill for the book, Weaving New Worlds: Southeastern Cherokee Women and Their Basketry, by the 1930s ethnographers identified and named nearly two dozen basket patterns traditionally woven by the Eastern Band of Cherokee. The patterns are geometrical and can be somewhat abstract. The flowing water pattern, for example, is made of intersecting splints that zig-zag up the side of a basket. Many are dyed with plants, like walnut or butternut bark, to create color contrast.

Betty Maney holds one of her signature white oak baskets, dyed with butternut bark. She keeps bundles of white oak splints on hand year-round.

Maney relies on that contrast to create her distinct and precise patterns. She likes symmetry, and uses different colored splints to repeat certain elements like vertical lines or “bands” that encircle the basket.

“What I like to do is put a band around the bottom, and as I weave up I put a separation in there by repeating a specific design with some colors,” Maney says. “Then I will repeat the bottom design on the top, so it’s real distinctive when you look at it.”

The baskets are usually oval or vase-shaped, sometimes with lids, sometimes with handles.

For Maney, the patterns are a continuation of her mother’s legacy. “My mom’s designs that she used in her baskets live through me and my sister. To us, that’s keeping her work alive.”

Maney finds ways to put her own spin on what she learned from her mom, too. “I call what I do contemporary cultural art. Because it’s always an improvement. You’re always coming up with something different, you’re always making things your own.”

Maney uses graph paper to sketch out patterns for weaving baskets and beads. She often uses similar patterns in both mediums and has recently begun using computer programs to manipulate her patterns.

Cherokee baskets are unique — they cannot be made just anywhere. Many of the materials used, like river cane or bloodroot, are native to the southeastern United States.

“It’s just something that’s important to the Cherokee, to our culture. It identifies who we are, what we do and why it’s important to us. That was our way of life. That’s how we survived,” Maney says.

She started making baskets during a craft revival in the 1990s. By then, baskets were mostly sold in craft stores to tourists or entered in competitions. In the past, though, Maney says they were mostly utilitarian.

“When I was little, we still needed them for fish baskets, and the small square ones were used as a sieve in the hominy making process to rinse the ash out of the hominy. And then the handle baskets were used for gathering and storage.”

“The resources — the natural resources — became scarce, and that was largely due to private landowners and development. Like the river cane that grows along the cornfields, the farmers were just plowing it up and burning it.”- Betty Maney

Coping With Scarcity

The tourism industry started growing in Cherokee after the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway was completed in 1936. Although baskets were still used in everyday life, basket makers also began selling them to tourists during the busy summer months.

A woman demonstrates basket making, likely at the Cherokee Indian Fair circa 1920s–1930s. From the Charles A. Farrell Photo Collection, PhC.9, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC

Basket making plays an important role in Cherokee’s economy, but pressure from tourism and increased land development have made it more difficult to find basket making materials in the wild.

“The resources — the natural resources — became scarce, and that was largely due to private landowners and development. Like the river cane that grows along the cornfields, the farmers were just plowing it up and burning it,” Maney says.

She is not the only artist to feel the effects of this scarcity. Faye Junaluska is a basketmaker with 40 years experience who has also had trouble sourcing her materials. She comes from a long line of basket makers.

“There’s my great grandma, my grandma, my mother and me. So, I’m a fourth generation myself,” Junaluska says.

Faye Junaluska stands in front of photos of her mother, Emma Squirrel Taylor on display at the Qualla Arts & Crafts Cooperative.

Like Maney, Junakuska learned the art from her mother, Emma Squirrel Taylor, whose work was displayed in the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

Both Maney and Junaluska work with white oak, which is harvested as a sapling, when it does not have many knots or branches. It takes a skilled hand to determine if a white oak tree is suitable for a basket — you do not know if a tree is usable until you cut it down and look inside. But it can be hard to find in Cherokee.

River cane can also be tough to find. The bamboo species is native to southern Appalachia and grows in large patches called cane breaks. It is also used to make dart guns, a Cherokee weapon, and floor mats. Junaluska does not remember a time when the river cane grew nearby.

“I never heard my mother talk about going out and gathering cane, or the women going out and gathering cane here somewhere.”

Junaluska and her mother had to find new ways to get their materials instead. This usually meant going outside Cherokee, or bartering with other artisans. Junaluska still does that today, trading out materials she gathered or a basket she made for a white oak tree.

Maney has also found ways to cope with scarcity. She uses bloodroot — tiny white flowers that only bloom in early spring — to dye her basket splints a vibrant red. To get that color, though, the petals need to be fresh. Maney and her family have a special way of preserving it.

“We have learned to clean it really, really good, wash all the dirt off, put it in freezer bags and we can freeze it, and it’s still fresh.”

A local nonprofit has stepped in to help too. Revitalization of Traditional Cherokee Artisan Resources, or RTCAR, was founded in 2005 by the Cherokee Preservation Foundation to help protect and preserve resources for Cherokee artists. One of their programs connects artists, including Maney, with landowners who have materials they can use.

Now, once a year, Maney and other basketmakers go all the way to Kentucky to gather river cane through a connection made by RTCAR.

A Community Effort

Finding ways to cope with scarcity is crucial for the survival of basket making. It also relies on strong communities and people who work to keep the tradition alive.

“Because you’ve got so many community members, family members involved in the process, from identifying and gathering, harvesting, it passes on that knowledge to them. That way it stays alive,” Maney says.

Two Cherokee women display basket making techniques and materials, circa 1950. From the Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

There have been many times that a basket making technique nearly went extinct, but each time the Cherokee community saved it by teaching and ushering in new generations of basket makers. Maney was one of these novices once, but now she finds herself on the other side of the exchange.

“When somebody asks me how to make a basket, I’m happy to share.”

This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a collaboration with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council. The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.

Generation After Generation: Ashe County Seed Savers Preserve Heirloom Seeds, Appalachian History

In Appalachia, organizations like seed libraries and community gardens are helping to save traditional heirloom vegetables from being lost. Sometimes, the seeds are found in unexpected places like when Travis Birdsell visited the barn of an Ashe County farmer in 2017.

There, he found tomato seeds smeared on the side of an old grocery store sack.

“All the words said were ‘Big Red,’” Birdsell said.

“Big Red” ended up being an Oxheart tomato, an heirloom variety known for its huge size. Each tomato can weigh up to 2.5 pounds, making them more than four times the size of the average grocery store tomato. Before the tomatoes are even fully grown, they’re heavy enough to bend their stalks.

Birdsell knew he wanted to plant the seeds, but when he did, only one germinated. That single seed, though, was enough for him to successfully grow the tomato in 2019.

The seed was planted in the Ashe County Victory Garden. It’s located in downtown Jefferson, North Carolina. Birdsell, the Ashe County Cooperative Extension director, has used the garden since 2016 as a space to grow and reintroduce heirloom vegetable varieties in southern Appalachia.

Ashe County Victory Garden is home to nine different heirloom vegetable varieties native to southern Appalachia. The garden is designed with education in mind. The trellises shown here provide an opportunity for community members to learn best practices for their own gardens.

Each seed has a special origin story, but right now, the Oxheart tomato is the star — it’s enormous, of course, and Birsell said it has a meaty texture.

Varieties like the Oxheart tomato are kept alive thanks to the work of seed savers. The work they do throughout Appalachia is crucial in keeping heirloom varieties on our tables and in our bellies.

Seed saving is especially important in communities like Ashe County. Agriculture has always been the main industry, and local families have been able to keep certain varieties around for decades. Birdsell said he hopes the Victory Garden highlights that.

“We want to play into the culture that’s alive and well in southern Appalachia, which is independence. This is a way to tap into food independence.”

A Radical Idea

Getting seeds into the hands of home gardeners is a key part of that self sufficiency. In 2019, Birdsell produced enough of the Oxheart tomatoes to make seeds available to the public, through the Ashe County Seed Library, which is about a mile up the road from the garden in West Jefferson, North Carolina.

The Ashe County Seed Library is housed in an old card catalogue. Anyone in the community is welcome to borrow seeds — no library card needed.

The seed library is on the second floor of the public library and is housed in an old card catalogue cabinet. The drawers are stuffed with dozens of varieties of seeds. There are beans, tomatoes, greens and even flowers.

"Seeds are so important. We don't really think about it that much, but one simple seed can produce a plant that can produce hundreds of more seeds, which can feed a whole community."- Sarah Harrison

Each tiny manila envelope contains about a dozen seeds. Heirloom beans and tomatoes are among the most popular. Librarians ask that people try to save a few seeds, so they can continue to stock them next year. There are also handouts that describe the seed saving process for nearly every kind of seed in the library.

Beans can be left on the vine until the shells are dry. Then, the seeds can be removed and stored in a jar until next year. Tomatoes are a bit trickier. Some people dry the seeds on a piece of wax paper so they’re easy to remove, and others put seeds in a jar and cover them with water. The good seeds float to the top, and the others stay at the bottom.

All the seeds at the Ashe County Seed Library are free. There’s no formal check-out process, and you don’t even need a library card. And when the cost of heirloom seeds can sometimes be more than $4 in stores, it can seem like a radical idea to give them away.

“I think it’s liberating to be able to provide for yourself and being able to access free seeds is the start of that process,” Birdsell said.

Ashe County Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners pack seeds from the 2019 Victory Garden harvest into small manila envelopes. The seeds, which are germination tested, will be available at the High Country Seed Swap in March 2020 and in the Ashe County Seed Library.

A Lost Art

Some of these seeds in the Ashe County Seed Library have been saved by local families like Vida Belvin’s for generations.

Her brother donated a special variety of pole bean that’s been a staple in their family since the 1920s. She calls it the Six Week Bean. It’s a flat green bean and you can get up to two harvests a year with it — more than a traditional green bean.

Blevins and her brother learned to save seeds from their parents. Their mom, Kada Owen McNeill, has lived in Ashe County for a century. McNeill was the 7th child of 12. She grew up on a family farm, just a few miles north of Jefferson.

Kada Owen McNeill, long-time Ashe County resident, sits in her home in Jefferson, North Carolina. Her family has grown the Six Week bean that was featured in the Ashe County Victory Garden and Seed Library since the 1920s.

They grew and preserved most of the food they ate. McNeill remembers giant, 65 gallon barrels of sauerkraut that her family would make and share with their neighbors. And, to save money, they spent many hours at the end of each season saving seeds.

McNeill grew up during the Great Depression. Then, saving seed was a necessity. Because you couldn’t just run out and buy them at the store. They saved seeds for apples, cabbage and parsnips. Her dad even built a small room specifically for drying pumpkin and apple seeds. She taught her daughter to save seeds too.

“I think it’s kind of a lost art now,” Blevins said.

Seed saving may be less common than it was a few decades ago, but it can still have the power to shape entire communities, Sarah Harrison said, who donated seeds to the Ashe County Seed Library through the Seeds of Resilience Project at Appalachian State University.

“Seeds are so important. We don’t really think about it that much, but one simple seed can produce a plant that can produce hundreds of more seeds, which can feed a whole community,” Harrison said.

According to experts like Chris Smith, the executive director of the Utopian Seed Project, based in Asheville, North Carolina, the cost of losing these seeds could be devastating for Appalachian communities down the road.

Smith said that seed saving helps build ecological resilience. Because if we only have a handful of different types of tomatoes or types of beans, we aren’t as adaptable as we would be if we have hundreds of different types of heirloom seeds kept somewhere safe. As a researcher, he said that genetic diversity in seeds is key for a sustainable, resilient future.

“If we’re saving our own seeds, in our own regions, then what we see is crop adaptability from season to season,” Smith said.

And the seeds that have grown here in this climate for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years are simply better adapted to southern Appalachia than most of the seeds you can buy in the store.

This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council. The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.