We have a George Jones Jr. broom here in our home. Now, George makes brooms to be used, and brooms to be displayed. Seeing as our house is populated by three Roombas (one for each floor and a dedicated one for kitchen duty each evening as we sleep. I’m a fan.) a Dyson, and a steam mop, I just don’t feel like using my George Jones artsy broom.
I think George comes each year to Kentuck — this is a shot from his tent one year — and we must’ve gotten ours from him eight or nine years ago.
George isn’t the first person in his family to make brooms — his great-grandfather started a broom operation at the tenant farm in Lauderdale County he managed during the Depression. It’s just gone from generation to generation. George has been named a Master Craftsman and a Craft Fellow by the Alabama State Council on the Arts. My favorite of his brooms is here.
Last week I heard about broom makers in North Carolina — Marlow and Ralph Gates (article about them in the Asheville paper here). There’s a tutorial on how to make a cobweb broom here on their website.
I’ve heard of ‘jumping the broom’ but wow these wedding brooms he makes — and these too…