RuthSouthLoomDonation - ruthsouthloomdonation

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Local Family Gives Generous Donation to Florence Art School

The move

Donation of Ruth South's Looms to Florence

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Biography of Ruth South

Ruth South, a patient, soft spoken weaving teacher, learned her craft through Roosevelt’s New Deal/WPA program in the early 1940’s. She also attended summer sessions at Berea College in Kentucky and Penland School in Spruce Pine, NC. Starting at the young age of 18, she taught weaving to adults at Watauga Handicrafts with Miss Elizabeth Lord, a woman who came to Boone, NC from upstate New York and who was a trainer with the WPA.

After her marriage to Austin South in 1945, Ruth continued to teach at Watauga Handicrafts until her three children were born in the late 40’s and early 50’s. Recognizing the need to be a homemaker, she continued to use her weaving skills at home to provide a second income for the family, and around 1960, realized a dream to have her own “weaving room”, when a building adjacent to her home was constructed to house her looms.

Her father, Estel Carlton, built many of her looms, using pegs rather than bolts. He discovered pegs worked better because the action of the loom loosened the bolts, requiring frequent tightening. Ruth taught her mother, Nellie Carlton to weave in the early 40’s, after her retirement from teaching school in a one-room schoolhouse near Blowing Rock.

Ruth South was accepted to the highly esteemed Southern Highland Craft Guild around 1950. From her home, she continued to weave and produce many functional handmade items like aprons, placemats, curtains, lavender sachet bags, skirts and other clothing, coverlets, rugs and more. During the summer tourist season, she delivered her handmade goods for resale to various gift shops including Parkway Craft Center, stores in Blowing Rock and places along the Blue Ridge Parkway as far away as Fontana Village in the Nantahala Forest area in western NC and Lurray Caverns in Virginia.

From 1967 until the late 1970’s, Ruth returned to teaching weaving at an area girls’ camp – Camp Yonahlossee – the oldest camp in North Carolina, started in 1923. Here Ruth South realized her true passion for weaving was in teaching. She loved the idea of passing on the wonderful, meditative art of weaving to others.

Her family’s hope and desire is that her legacy will live on in the donation of her looms to the Florence Art School in Glendale Springs.’ Reprinted from the biography of Ruth South written by her daughter Teresa South.

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