A sweetgrass basket sitting in a Columbia gallery is now the largest one on the planet, and the South Carolina State Museum will throw a free public party next month to mark the title.
Guinness World Records confirmed this month that “Big Percy,” woven by Mount Pleasant artisan Corey Alston, holds the record for largest sweetgrass basket. The museum will host a celebration and plaque presentation Friday, Aug. 7, from 10:30 a.m. to noon at 301 Gervais St. in Columbia. The event is free, open to the public and suitable for all ages.
For South Carolinians, the record puts an international stamp on a craft that started on the state’s own coast. Coiled basket sewing came to the Lowcountry with enslaved West Africans and has been carried forward for generations by Gullah Geechee families in and around Mount Pleasant. Alston, a fifth generation basket weaver and a direct descendant of enslaved Africans brought to the region, said the recognition reaches past his own career.
“Big Percy represents generations of preservation and cultural continuance,” Alston said in a statement released by the museum.
A basket that needed its own cradle
The museum commissioned the piece in the fall of 2024 and Alston began weaving in February 2025. Surveying firm Cox and Dinkins Inc. measured the finished basket at 52.6 inches tall and 43.3 inches wide. It runs roughly 11 feet around and weighs 80 pounds. A typical Alston basket weighs one to three pounds.
The size forced changes to a centuries old process. Alston hired a woodsmith to build a cradle several feet across so the walls would not bend while he worked. Materials came from the same marshes and roadsides that supply his smaller work, including sweetgrass, brown marsh bulrush, palmetto fronds and pine needles, all harvested and sun dried before a single coil was sewn.
Alston, 44, has been sewing baskets for close to 25 years and runs his family’s storefront in the Charleston City Market. He learned the craft in the Lowcountry and was mentored by Mary Jackson, one of the most widely recognized names in Mount Pleasant basketry. His work is held by the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, and he has taken commissions from the Smithsonian, the Duke Endowment, the Charleston Visitors Center, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City and, most recently, the International African American Museum in Charleston. He has called the basket the biggest and baddest piece of his career.
“This is the largest piece that’s been documented for the last 100 years,” Alston said when the basket was unveiled in February.
Ranky Tanky members to perform
The Aug. 7 program includes remarks from Alston, treats from Sweet GG’s Bakery and a live performance by Quiana Parler and Charlton Singleton of Ranky Tanky, the Charleston quintet that has won two Grammy Awards.
Formed in 2016, Ranky Tanky builds on the Gullah music of the Sea Islands and mixes in jazz, gospel, blues and soul. The band’s self titled debut reached No. 1 on Billboard’s jazz chart, and its 2019 album “Good Time” won the 2020 Grammy for best regional roots music album, the first time an album of Gullah music took the category. The group won again in 2023 for a live album recorded at the 2022 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Parler sings and Singleton plays trumpet and sings. The rest of the group is Clay Ross on guitar and vocals, Kevin Hamilton on bass and Quentin E. Baxter on drums and percussion.
Where to see the basket
Big Percy was unveiled Feb. 19 and entered the museum’s permanent collection. It remains on view in the renovated Lipscomb Art Gallery, where Ramon Jackson, the museum’s cultural history curator, has framed the commission as a way to show visitors that sweetgrass basketry is a living South Carolina tradition rather than a historical footnote.
The South Carolina State Museum, a Smithsonian Affiliate, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m., and is closed Mondays. Details on the celebration and on museum admission are available at scmuseum.org or by calling 803-898-4921.
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Thomas Hyslip lives in Tega Cay with his wife and daughter. After 27 years in the U.S. Army and Federal Law Enforcement, he retired to pursue his passion for teaching. Tom is now an Assistant Professor of Instruction at the University of South Florida. In 2 short years he has won 10 awards from the South Carolina Press Association, including first place in column writing, education beat reporting and best podcast.
