While the marionette’s identity is unknown, she recalls another mentor, M Street Principal Anna J. Cooper, one of the first African American women to earn a four-year college degree and the first to earn a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne. The marionettes were on display at the Anacostia Community Museum’s exhibition honoring Dr. Cooper from February 1981 through September 1982.
To make this marionette, William N. Buckner, Jr. (1888-1984) used skills honed at M Street High School, an African American public school with a national reputation for educational excellence in Washington, DC’s then-segregated system. The quality of both art and carpentry instruction at M Street is evident in the finely-crafted marionette, which is almost two feet tall. A wooden hand-controller c
This basket is made of wood splints and round reeds woven in a plain weave. The splint handle is wrapped in thin, evenly spaced wood splints. Artist Ira Blount created texture by using double plied twisted seagrass cord and a wrapped seagrass decoration to accent the sides of the basket near the handle. The combination of the woven splints, reeds, and seagrass cord creates visual interest througho
This overshot coverlet is woven in a variation on a pattern known as Tennessee Trouble. The bedcovering’s warp is linen, while its green and red weft is wool. A grid of squares in six horizontal and six vertical rows composes the boldest elements of the reversible, geometric pattern. The overshot weave is typical of coverlets made in the South, which could be woven at home on a four-shaft loom. Th