McClung Museum

This past Tuesday, my class visited the McClung Museum. We learned about what Tennessee was like many years ago, and how it has evolved over time. I object I chose were shells. The native people used shells for many different ways. Such as, bowls, masks, and pendants. The picture above shows a man-made pendant using carving tools to make designs on the shell, and make it into a necklace. To this day we still wear shell necklaces. The shell necklace today also has a carved pendant like the necklace the native's made. Overall, I thought the trip to the McClung was very interesting and informative of how native's lived.

Stone Projectile Points

Going back to when  I was a small child arrowheads have always fascinated me. I was amazed by how old they were and the design of them. This past Tuesday my class visited the McClung Museum to learn about how people evolved overtime throughout Tennessee. My focus throughout the exhibit was the materials made of stone. I was immediately drawn to the case of the projectile points also known as arrowheads. The native people used the sharp tools for hunting and gathering starting int the Paleoindian. Their basic shape and purpose has carried through out history. Today hunters still use bow and arrows to hunt for game. As you can see in my pictures below that yes the material has changed but the triangular shape and sharp edge is still similar today.

Stone: from the Paleoindian Period to Today

Stone is proven to be used as early as the Paleoindian Period (10,000- 8,000 BC). Early peoples had functions for stone such as hunting, ornimentation, cooking, simple tools and home appliances. Known hunting stones such as the spear were made by chipping the stone to a point. A common form of jewelry or ornimentation was stone because it was easily found but it could be transformed by rubbing and smothing it down into beautiful shapes. Stones such as the "nutting stone" helped with cooking by forcing a nut out of its shell. Stone could be used for tools such as a hammar, a sharp point or knife, and even a grinder. Finally, Stone was used for bowls in order to store things and even collect food while gathering. Stone is used in many of the same ways today as it was in the Paleoindian Period but designers have found new ways to incorporate this material into spaces. As the images demonstrate, stone is used as a sink bowl and looks much like the soapstone bowl shown above it. Designers have found many ways to incorporate stone into homes not only for decorating purposes but on a large scale in buildings, too.  Finished Soapstone BowlConcrete Bowl Sink

McClung Museum

Ceramics: From Pitchers to Pipes

Straight necked water bottles These ceramic water bottles were hand crafted by the early settlers of East Tennessee beginning in the 1700s.  Majority of the ceramic items made were for the storage of food and drinks.  Anything from small decorative bowls to huge shallow bowls meant for evaporating salt were made by these people.  Typical household uses were not the only things ceramics were used for though.  For example people made figurines out of clay for their children to use as toys, and made decorative pipes for them to smoke what they think was tobacco at the time.  The McClung museum had a lot of design related artifacts proving that Knoxville is is the perfect place to study design history.

Current day ceramic water bottle

Modern Originals (A look at Woven Cane Material)

We as humans today cannot conceptualize what it may be like to not have storage for our food and belongings. For natives of our area hundreds of years ago, this was the case. In the Historic Period, during the late 18th century, Cherokee Indians began to craft storage containers made of natural materials. The most common material was River Cane. It was found in abundance, and still is today, in this area. The women of the tribes would stay, as the men would hunt, to weave baskets out of Cane. They made them in intericate patterns and wove them tightly, so they could withstand heavy objects and dyed with juices from berries.

Overall, textile and materials are important to us as Human Beings. This transcends time and is relevant to us, even today.

Much of the baskets were used for storage or as ritual items. However, more often than not, storage was the main objective. Upon looking at the Cane Baskets in the McClung Museum on the University Campus in Knoxville, it struck a chord with me that today, we use similar patterns on objects for similar purpose.

With this being said, you may ask yourself, what objects? It is simple. Objects like dressers, end tables, bags, and still even baskets are used today wildly with the Cane material to reflect a more natural, or even primitive, aesthetic. Overall, textile and materials are important to us as Human Beings. This transcends time and is relevant to us, even today.

This is an example of a modern item that reflects a similar material and pattern. We, too, use this for storage, just as the Cherokee and other Native Americans did.