Mary Jackson is no stranger to awards. She has won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Museum for Women in the Arts, the MacArthur Fellowship, the first National Bronze Award of Arts Achievement and Excellence given by The International Council of Fine Arts Deans, a United States Artists Donnelley Fellowship, the Environmental Stewardship Award of Achievement by the South Carolina Aquarium and she’s also an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from South Carolina’s College of Charleston. Now, Jackson has earned the National Endowment for the Arts’ Heritage Fellowship (NEA), a one-time award of $25,000 and  the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.

According to the NEA website, “Jackson is a founding member of the Mount Pleasant Sweetgrass Basket Makers’ Association, and leads efforts to protect the threatened wetland habitats of sweetgrass and ensure continued local access to these resources.”

Jackson’s work has been displayed at museums across the country, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the Museum of Arts and Design in New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Museum of African American History in Detroit.

About Mary Jackson (from the NEA website):

A descendent of the Gullah community of coastal South Carolina, Mary Jackson was born in 1945 in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Jackson learned the art of making baskets at the age of four from her mother and grandmother. Following chores, Jackson’s family would gather to make bulrush and sweetgrass baskets, using skills brought to the United States by their West African ancestors. Sweetgrass, a plant named for the sweet smell of its reeds, is indigenous to the coastal lowlands of South Carolina. Developed originally as domestic and agricultural tools for cotton and rice production, sweetgrass baskets have traditionally taken utilitarian shapes such as storage containers and rice fanners.

Despite this tradition in her family, Jackson did not take up basketmaking as an adult until 1973 when she began producing baskets full-time and she began teaching her daughter the art form. Today, basketmaking is still a family affair — her husband and son gather the sweetgrass from local marshes while her daughter provides administrative support. For the last seven years, she has been teaching her granddaughter the art of Sweetgrass basketmaking.

Jackson’s intricately coiled baskets preserve the centuries-old craft of sweetgrass basketry and continue to push the tradition in new directions. While preserving the culture and history of her ancestors, Jackson infuses the art form with a contemporary aesthetic and expressiveness all her own. With masterful technique, Jackson translates practical designs into finely detailed, sculptural forms. Today, her baskets are owned by such noted individuals as Prince Charles and the Empress of Japan.

Click here to view a video when Jackson was on the show “Craft in America.”