In conjunction with the opening of our fall exhibition “Treasured Chests: 19th Century Furniture by NWA Craftsmen,” we welcome Jerome Bias to Cane Hill on August 16, 2025 for a fun day with educational activities.
The Historic Cane Hill Gallery is located at 14327 S Hwy 45, Canehill, AR.
August 16 events include:
10 am – 11 am: Woodworking Basics Demonstration
This demonstration offers kids of all ages a chance to see what tools enslaved and later freed African American craftsmen used. Attendees will get the chance to handle the tools and use them. In the process, participants will learn sawing, drilling, and planning skills.
11 am – 12 pm: Dovetails & Saws Woodworkers Tool Talk/Demonstration
This Tool Talk will be geared toward adults with questions about techniques and processes that the craftsmen used in creating the furniture that is in the exhibition. Participants will learn about different types of joinery such as mortise and tenons, dovetail joinery, and edge jointed boards.
12 pm – 1 pm: Lunch
1 pm – 2:30 pm: The Persistence of Hope: Seeing ourselves in the Decorative Arts Lecture
Historically the southern decorative arts have included African Americans at a limited level. The presentation will follow the journey that Jerome Bias has taken exploring southern material culture to explore the relationships that his enslaved ancestors and their descendants have with southern decorative arts and southern material culture.
Jerome Bias, of Graham, North Carolina, is a furniture maker and cultural heritage practitioner, specializing in the reproduction of early Southern furniture using period techniques. Bias currently makes reproductions of furniture from places where his family was enslaved. He is exploring the question: How did his ancestors handle the trauma of enslavement and yet maintain the ability to have hope and love?
This project was funded in part by a grant from the Black History Commission of Arkansas
