Timber Co-Op
The White Oak Timber Co-Op is a non-invasive harvesting cooperative in which the Arts Center of Cannon County executes a selective harvest of premium white oak timber. This co-op supplies traditional basket makers with the raw materials they need to help continue one of Middle Tennessee’s most enduring traditional art forms. Basket making started as a technique for survival creating utilitarian vessels for trade at local mercantile stores and eventually became one of the most respected traditional American art forms. Premium “basket” oak is specified as “about the size of a stove pipe, straight grained, around thirty years old,” and is extremely hard to obtain.
The Arts Center secured lands from five private landowners, assembling close to 500 acres for mapping and selective harvesting of select stands of white oak to insure the continuation of this artistic tradition.
