40-plus years of craftmanship
The first thing you notice about Andrew McCall are his hands. They are constantly in motion, pulling, bending and twisting long ropes of vines into the base, sides and handles of his famous baskets.
These same hands have been pulling wisteria vines out of the woods of Black Belt Alabama for more than four decades, piling them into the back of his truck and bringing them to his Lowndes County home where he weaves and hammers them into one-of-a-kind baskets. The final products can be found at craft shows and specialty retail shops across Alabama.
“I’ve been doing this for over 40 years,” McCall says, as he pulls a long vine into position for a basket handle. Each creation is unique. “Each one is different. And not by design. It just happens that way. I can make them similar, but not exactly. It’s my
life’s passion.”
McCall, now 75, started out years ago pulling Spanish moss off the trees in his native Lowndes County woods and selling it to florists to use in floral arrangements. That led to him trying his hand at pulling grapevines from the woods to make wreaths, and then to pulling kudzu and wisteria, which is now his preferred vine for making baskets.
The wisteria vine is pliable, but it can’t be forced, he says. “I got kind of tired trying to make it move one way, and I let them go their own way,” he says of the vines. “The vine just do what it wants to do. It’s kind of like dancing. You don’t know how to dance but you go with somebody who does dance and you’re going where they go.”
The wisteria is like that. “I don’t fuss with it. It doesn’t do any good. It looks better when they lay where they want to lay.”
That philosophy has guided him to make more than 10,000 baskets, he estimates. Each one, a different creation. Over the years, he’s also made wreaths, birdhouses, small churches from old lumber and tin, and even willow furniture. But baskets remain his biggest seller.
“Everybody that ever bought a basket from me, they got their own special basket,” he says. “None of them nowhere look just like it.” People use them to display fruit, a plant, wine, or other seasonal items for their table centerpiece. Their versatility makes them ideal indoors or outside.
Crafting a basket is a process he’s honed over time, starting with the bottom and “you go from there,” making the top and then tying the two together. He likens it to the way a bridge is made and held together at precise angles with cables. “It’s the same principle.”
When he’s roaming the woods, he looks for vines that will make a complete basket. “I see the best, and I see what I need,” he says. He uses a sharp snipper to cut the vines into the length a basket requires. McCall carries his tools, including a hammer and sharpening stone, in a dented aluminum tea kettle.
McCall grew up in Lowndes County south of Montgomery, served in the Marines and worked in construction, but found his true life’s calling as a craftsman. “At one point I thought I couldn’t make a living off of it,” but he has. “I don’t have to chase nobody to buy my stuff.” He and his wife Etta raised five children, and have eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
His baskets are a popular seller at Black Belt Treasures Cultural Arts Center in Camden where his work has been sold since September 2005. “His many creations have been some of our top sellers each year,” says Executive Director Sulynn Creswell. “We have sold his furniture, baskets, churches, birdhouses, angels and plaques.” He has demonstrated in many locations for the center from Pepper Place in Birmingham to Pebble Hill in Auburn, she says. “He has also demonstrated his craft in many schools across the Black Belt and the state as part of the BBTCAC Teaching Artist program.”
Demonstrating didn’t come easily in the early days for McCall, however. “I used to be so shy when I first started making them, I couldn’t make it in front of people.,” he says. “I couldn’t get used to people looking at me and I was embarrassed about what I do.” But gradually as time went on, he got more comfortable. “It’s your work and you shouldn’t be ashamed of it. You got to get yourself comfortable in what you do.”
Taught by God
When he talks to those who watch him work, many find it hard to believe he never took any lessons. “Ain’t nobody ever taught me nothing but God,” he says. “I consider myself an apprentice and God being my teacher.” People want to think someone passed the craft on to him, but “I’ve been in it 40 years and I’ve never seen nobody making baskets but me. This is what I know.”
Besides baskets, his other popular items are wooden churches, made from lumber he salvages from old houses that have been torn down. Their roofs are made from salvaged tin. Some come from antebellum homes. He likes to write a Bible verse on each one, not the verse itself, but the scripture reference. “My thing is to get you to read the Bible, so if you read that verse you more likely to read something else (in the Bible). For me, the word of God is a lifeline to everything I do.”
His 40-plus years of crafting baskets have not been without bumps. In the early 1990s, as best he can recall, he appeared on live TV on QVC, which had asked him to make 800 baskets. It took him 5 to 6 months to make that many baskets, an order so large he had to hire others to help him. He had to pull vines and make baskets every day. It sapped the joy out of the creative process. “That got me out of mass production right there. Never again!” he says. But the 800 baskets sold out in 30 minutes.
These days, he’s content to keep making his baskets and churches as long as he’s able, but on his timeline. Amazingly, the hands that have pulled thousands of feet of vines out of trees are still soft and able to grasp, bend, cut and wield a hammer. “I never had callouses,” he says, looking at his smooth palms. “They do get tired sometimes. But I love what I’m doing. I tell people I’ll probably do this until I die.”
And how did he get the name Vineman? He laughs when he tells the story of 20 or 30 years ago when he was working on some grapevine wreaths and a school bus of children came by and hollered, “Hey Mr. Vine Man, how you doing?” “At first I thought it was an insult, but it never went away. And that’s what I do. I had other names, but that one stuck.”
You can find Andrew McCall’s creations at Black Belt Treasures in Camden; Priester’s Pecans in Ft. Deposit (where he demonstrates on most Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.); White Flowers in Birmingham; and The Plant Shoppe in Fairhope, or visit thevineman.com.
