program focuses primarily on art, but art with a purpose.

First however archaeology takes the lead.

Coastal Carolina University and Brookgreen Gardens are partnering, to provide students hands on experience.

Conducting archaeological research on historic plantation sites.

Dr David Palmer and his anthropology and geology students are excavating an area where former enslaved Africans were housed.

And they're finding artifacts from the nineteenth century.

♪ We are a unique department in that were combined anthropology and geography program.

There are only a handful of others in the U.S.

♪ Our partnership that we have with Brookgreen Gardens is a great opportunity for students to learn while their participating in hands on original research.

It's focused on the archaeological digs for our slave sites.

This partnership enables us to have accurate historical information about this property.

And really contribute to the overall knowledge of how Brookgreen and the rice plantations here an enslaved Africans lived.

Which will inform all of our exhibits and programs.

The students have the opportunity to not just learn about archaeology kind of an abstract.

From reading or or the standard lectures or viewing videos or something but they actually go out and participate in the actual process.

You know, so they may see from some of the research design portions, to the execution in the field.

And how we do sampling, the record keeping in the field.

They they get to do some public interpretation.

It's actually really really cool to actually be able to go to the plantation and get your hands kind of dirty.

Actually get into a unit and starting digging with trowels and shovels and actually looking and taking care of the materials we are looking looking to find.

It's a very different experience.

It's very hands on.

Because in the classroom you may learn about all this but you're not actually getting to do it.

So when you walk out here and you actually get to pick up the trowl and like scrape up the dirt yourself and find the objects.

It's a it's almost more rewarding in a way because you're getting to do it yourself.

instead of just hearing about what other people have found.

What we have here is the working area that we grided out for our May semester twenty eighteen field school.

What we're trying to do is find potential remnants of the slave village that potentially was in this area.

There was a map drawn up by one of the previous owners.

That shows generally where one might have been but from the scale we can't really tell.

Dr.

Palmer has decided to excavate this area because he believes through GPR and shovel testing that there is a potential structure here.

Couple years ago they came out here and they excavated in similar areas.

So couple years later now we're comming out here to see if there's any more post holes.

This semester we have opened up more one by one meter units to see if we can find more of what we call post molds.

Which is basically a stain that's left in the ground from the support beam of a structure.

We're looking at the period of the the Joshua John Ward Era, when the rice plantation really expanded.

So eighteen thirties to about the time of the civil war.

That was when the Brooking rice plantation was at its its largest in terms of size.

There were more than eleven hundred you know enslaved Africans.

So we're trying to find what was the extent of the housing area for them.

Once we find one structure that we can kind of confirm that that's what it was.

Then we can start measuring out from there and finding more.

And then you know we can start relating the artifacts that we find to a particular household in some cases.

And start telling the story of the people who lived there.

It's a lot of hard work you know.

We were out here for like first couple days just clearing lands.

And then once we got through that were digging through like a bunch of roots and bugs and that's all in the hot sun.

It's a lot harder than I thought to be but it's very rewarding too.

We're going there, were using a little trowels, but as we're doing that we're finding objects and were, you know marking and bagging those.

And we have to sift all the dirt we go through.

And just going through that and you never know what you're gonna find.

So it's very cool.

It's hard work but it's worth it.

These are some of the artifacts that were finding here at our site.

Ceramic, cut nail, glass, tobacco pipe stem.

Something like this is very cool.

I wasn't expecting but found it while traveling and that's why we do this instead of shovels.

It's interesting just to think about you know how this was used back a couple hundred years ago maybe.

It's you know one of the reasons why we're here doing this I think it's amazing.

It's my like archaeology.

It's like you never know what you're gonna find.

♪ I nice thing about this class is most the students are still going to be following through on the project in the fall.

And they'll be washing, identifying, cataloging, and starting to make sense out of were finding.

So he can just measure with the height is gonna be.

Point five eight millimeters.

We have the artifacts from each particular context, bagged separately.

And context is just a shorthand for the horizontal and vertical exact location of them.

We use these for teaching but also these are part of the research collection and they'll be housed at Brookegreen Gardens.

They're gonna curate all these materials.

One of my ideal goals for this is to be able to find something that has some meaning for present day many of whom are descended from people who were enslaved right out here at Brookegreen.

We did find quite a few ceramics.

We also found quite a few of the nails that are used for structure support.

And we found those in relation to at least what were hoping is in relation to the feature elements, which would be post molds for where they're could of been structures that used those specific nails to hold up buildings.

For as far as like the slave village areas go.

Doing the lab afterwards is kind of unique because it's looking at Brookegreen as a whole and taking it as this is where I'm going to go and go dig.

And then it's one of those where now we're actually looking at what this means to the property.

And what this actually mean for the state and history in general.

♪ Wow!

During the time it was illegal for a slave to read or write.

One African American from Edgefield county was not only reading and writing but he was making art.

This is the story of David Drake also known as Dave the potter or in some circles Dave the Poet.

♪ David Drake was an enslaved African American in Edgefield, South Carolina during the first three quarters of the nineteenth century.

He's known today for the magnificent pots that he made.

The size of the pots that he made and he wrote poems on some of his pots while the clay was still damp.

This is important because at that time It was a crime really.

to teach slaves to read or to write.

The Edgefield district of South Carolina was the center of a vibrant pottery industry, in the early eightenn hundreds.

The Landrum and Drake families ran a kiln at pottersville just north of the town of Edgefield.

Dave the potter, was born into slavery in eighteen oh one and was first owned by Harvey Drake.

Probably the guy who taught him how to make potts.

And the Drake family was a very forward thinking household.

So it was probably in there household that he learned to ready and write.

In South Carolina before the civil war, it was against the law to teach a slave to read and write.

Never the less Dave managed to become literate.

It was a life changing event.

One that began to open the world and its mysteries to him.

Dave was a master potter and many of his stoneware creations were huge, some holding twenty five to forty gallons.

Sometimes at this stage of attaching the handles he inscribed his name Dave, in the wet clay.

Soon he was writing much more.

put every bit all between surely this jar will hold fourteen.

This noble jar will hold twenty.

Fill it with silver then you'll have plenty.

There wonderful couplets for the most part.

There is usually kind of wight and kind of humor to them.

For example, one that he wrote was "Oh the moon and the stars, hard work to make big jars."

In the eighteen thirties, Dave worked for the Landrum family.

Sometime in the eighteen forties he became the property of Lewis Miles, from then until the civil war can be considered Dave's golden age.

And that's when he does most of his work.

He was writing on regular owned jugs and jars.

Especially large jugs and jars.

If the pot was exceedingly wide and had a nice shape then that was the one he would bless per say with a thought or with a poem.

Dave belongs to Mr.

Miles.

wher the oven bakes and the pot biles.

After the war Dave adopted the surname Drake and continued to be known in Edgefield as a pottery Turner.

He had lost or injured leg possibly from a railroad accident and he needed help to make his pots.

Dave died sometime in the eighteen seventies.

Pottery making is a grueling process which involves digging, grinding, liquifying, filtering, drying, milling, turning, firing, and glazing.

He was in such a terrible situation.

He had to make pots every day of his life.

I mean it's drudgery honestly.

And he turned it into something extremely creative and he managed to put his his wight and his intelligence into those jars.

I think a natural beauty evolves out of something that's done repeatedly.

Pottery of course is a repetitive process.

You would have to make thousands and thousands of potts.

There is just a grace that you require when doing something over and over again.

I think a flare even.

You look back in history and you see this guy in a time it was illegal to to to teach a slave to ready and write.

And he wants to leave his mark on the world.

I mean he was against the grade.

He was he was obviously very very good as a potter, but good and then talented and then bold.

To put them all together to make rather unique.

I mean there is nothing else like this in the United States.

And he left something for us that we wonder at and we value and we appreciate.

That was the most dangerous part.

Was that he signed them.

There was no question about who wrote that poem.

Who made that pot.

Who could read.

Who could write.

When it was not really the thing he was supposed to be doing and he made sure we knew his name.

♪ There's a positive change happening within the walls of the Allendale correctional institution.

And it isn't costing taxpayers a dime.

Through the efforts of volunteers and donations from the community.

Inmates are finding rehabilitation through the arts.

As ETV low countries Holly Bounds Jackson shows us this program is giving them both hope and healing.

♪ Behind the fences and beneath the barbed wire.

Is a group of men, who probably call themselves, the advanced artists of Allendale.

They've each demonstrated a willingness to try new mediums, practice new skills, and through that they've displayed a passion that before prison they never knew they had.

I've had a rough childhood.

I didn't come from a place where people did art other than graffiti art.

You know, spray paint on walls and stuff like that.

I had been in a gang.

I've been in rough situations coming up.

I've been around drugs and violence my whole life.

So the way that art changed me.

Is that it showed me that there was a another way, number one.

Number two it showed me that I wasn't this bad person.

I wasn't the environment that I came from.

Number three it showed me that I had skills inside of myself that helped me to have self esteem.

Never had a steam I was I was always depressed.

I came from a household that was like that.

So it was natural that I would follow that but art has really helped me to expand my horizons.

It's helped me to lift myself out of that dark situation that I said I've been in.

It enlightened me.

It it showed me a whole nother world that I never knew existed.

And so, it it's changed me fundally, It's helped me to transcend the nominal existence about that came from and I realize that I could be something greater.

The paint's, the canvases, and the instruction by professional artists don't cost taxpayers a dime.

The supplies are donations from community members.

Who've heard about what's happening here.

Usually by way of a volunteer like Delane Marynowski, who was all in after just one visit.

I used to work with victims of violent crimes in where I lived.

And when my girlfriend asked me to come here I said no way.

I'm on the other side of the fence and she told me about the artists and I was studying art.

And so, I gave them some art supplies.

They wrote me a wonderful letter.

so I came out with no intention of doing anything more than making a donation of art supplies.

And then I met them.

And I realize that these are men who are genuinely working to become the man that they are meant to be on this earth.

And they're working very hard in all aspects of their life and art has been the changing force within the hearts and their lives.

These men are coming back into our community.

So we have a choice.

Do we want men to come back who've been in prison and learn more street skills and and they're gonna be in our community.

Or do we want men to come out as change individuals who have something positive to contribute to our society.

Marynowski is one of dozens of volunteers from all across the state.

Who makes the trip to rural Fairfax, South Carolina every week.

After getting acquainted with the men and their skill set.

She organized weekly visits from local artists, who represent different mediums.

In our program you have to do every medium and most of our artists have one or two mediums if they specialize in.

But they have to learn all the mediums.

So sometimes it's very intimidating for them and they do it.

They put themselves out there.

They're learning and growing and it's very very exciting.

For many this new adventure is sparking ideas and dreams.

This is what I want to do.

This is my future.

This is what I want to do when I get out.

I don't even think about world anymore.

Because my life it's been around Christ and painting.

And come August they'll get a chance to show their skills, their souls, to the outside world.

For so long they've been encouraged by officers and fellow inmates within the walls but in a first time ever experience.

This summer there art goes on display in a low country gallery.

They are going to be the featured artists at the Art League of Hilton Head in August.

And so, for a month they'll they will have their pieces there and be featured and be be recognized in the artistic community as artists.

This is huge because now there they will be identified not only as a man but as an artist.

It's yet another opportunity happening through the heart and mission of a volunteer.

And here at Allendale correctional the residents realize the volunteers are their avenue for hope and healing.

Those are the people that have shown me a a new way and those are the people that they've kept they've come here and they showed us they didn't have to care about people like us.

They've come in and they showed us that they genuinely care.

You know, we a lot of us these guys never had that.

We never had people to care care about our future.

I think these people are a god send.

I've done a lot of charity work in my lifetime and none of it has touched me like this.

They touched they touch my heart because when you give money and time to charity sometimes you don't know where it's going.

You don't know how it's really impacting and changing lives.

But every time I come here I see lives being changed more and more.

And I see the hard work they're doing because change just doesn't happen.

You have to put in hard work.

You have to put a commitment and they're doing that.

And and the things that I can do to help facilitate their skills and and change their lives has blessed me I think more then it's blessed them.

Next from our original SC series.

A look at yet another program where art provides hope and healing.

A nonprofit here in the Midlands is channeling creativity to fight cancer.

Using art healing icons looks to bring positivity to both cancer survivors and their families.

Leave what you know.

Leave your familiar.

Travel, go places that scare you.

Go places that are completely different from how you live because when we do that we realize that we are really more alike than we are different.

I was born in Columbia, South Carolina in nineteen fifty four.

So I've lived here my whole life.

So I should be a southerner but my parents aren't from the south, there from California.

So I grew up kind of as a misfit because I was raised really different than most of my friends were.

There's a wonderful photograph that I have in my box of photographs.

And it's a summer day and were playing in the sprinklers.

And that day when we were playing in the sprinklers in the summer.

I was told that my brother was going to go to the hospital because he needed to get some glasses because he was having really bad headaches.

So he went to the hospital.

Nobody told me anything until he was going to have an operation on his brain.

So he had an operation on his brain and then then the next day literally the next day.

I was told that he had died and I was in shock.

I I could not believe what they were telling me.

It was almost like slow motion.

And so, I went into my room and pulled the covers over my head and I weeped it seemed like for days.

It was really hard to as a ten eleven year old to understand what what that meant.

When everybody was just to to traumatized even talk about it.

I come from a family of artists.

So I grew up in a environment where art was just something that that everybody did.

And when I was trying to decide what I want to do with my life in college.

I didn't really know.

My mother said well why don't you take some art classes.

So I did.

And I fell in love and had a voice in the back of my head saying you aren't talented enough.

You can't be an artist.

That's for all those other people out there.

But I went ahead and took some classes and gained my confidence, and graduated from undergrad and then went to graduate school and came out with a desire to make studio art.

Which I did for many years and built a resume.

And exhibited my work throughout the United States.

And did juried shows and it was really really a wonderful time in life.

But really why I became an artist because it was a way for me to understand my life in a way for me to be quiet.

I realize that what I like most about the artistic process was the creating.

The being totally absorbed in the process and not knowing where that process was going to lead me.

I began to realize that was really a form of meditation.

Really a form of prayer.

Healing icons is a philosophy teaching art as healing.

Art can help you understand yourself.

I think because I was exposed to death at such a young age.

I have a deep hunger for life and and the meaning of life.

I believe that through the making of art there are conversations that can happen that never would have happened any other way.

Because sometimes it's just too painful or too personal or too scary.

And so, when you can look at a piece of artwork and you can talk about it from from that.

It becomes much more it's a softer softer experience it can grow into one of those really rich incredible conversations.

So I have ushered thousands of cancer patients through this process of using art as a way to articulate what sometimes is not quite speech ready.

It has been a phenomenal incredible experience for for me in my life.

♪ Hats off to a good friend Heidi Darr-Hope for making this program a reality.

For more stories about our state please visit our website at Palmettoscene.org and be sure to follow us on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

As we leave you tonight are palmetto postcard comes from Riverbanks Zoo here in Columbia.

And by the way don't forget to send us your postcards whether video or photos.

Send them to Palmettoscene@SCETV.org.

For ETV and Palmetto Scene I'm Beryl Dakers thanks for watching.

♪