Please come to the second presentation in the CLAW program's "Regulated Wild" series on Lowcountry environmental history. On Thursday, October 2nd, Dr. Dale Rosengarten will be leading a panel discussion at the Avery Research Center (125 Bull Street) among biologists, historians, community leaders, and basket-makers about the unique local art of sweetgrass basket-making that marks one of the lasting cultural connections between the Lowcountry and West Africa. Sweetgrass basket-making has been gaining proper respect ever since Dale Rosengarten published Row upon Row to accompany a ground-breaking traveling exhibition in the 1980s; the current "Grass Roots" exhibition at the Gibbes Museum and the recent award of a MacArthur Fellowship to basket-maker Mary Jackson indicates that both the artistry and the cultural significance of the baskets are now more fully recognized than ever. The full line-up of the panelists is as follows: Dr. Daniel J. Gustafson is an assistant professor in the Biology Department at The Citadel. His research interests include: Plant Ecology, Molecular Ecology, Conservation Biology, Plant / Soil Feedback, Population and Community Ecology, Restoration / Applied Ecology. Karl Ohlandt, Landscape Ecologist, joined the Spring Island staff in March 2007. Prior to coming to Spring Island, Karl was the Landscape Ecologist for Dewees Island (north of Charleston) since 1994. His interests are in landscape management and native plant communities. Dr. Dale Rosengarten is co-curator of the Museum for African Art’s exhibition, “Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art” and co-editor of the accompanying volume. Author of Row upon Row: Sea Grass Baskets of the South Carolina Lowcountry, she has written extensively on the art of coiled grass basketry, its African roots, and its long evolution on the South Atlantic coast. Rosengarten works as an historian and curator in Special Collections at the College of Charleston library. Thomasena Stokes-Marshall, project director of the Sweetgrass Cultural Arts Festival, is the first woman and the first African American to serve on the Mount Pleasant Town Council. Nakia Wigfall is a multi-generational basket maker who holds to the heritage of Sweetgrass basketry. As Executive Director of the Sweetgrass Cultural Arts Festival, she is an advocate and an ambassador for the basket-making community. We hope to see you all at the event, which is free and open to the public. Please encourage your students to come. Simon

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