Alston sets world record with “Big Percy” sweetgrass basket

MORNING HEADLINES | Mount Pleasant artisan Corey Alston now is in the Guinness Book of World Records for creating the world’s largest sweetgrass basket.

The S.C. State Museum, which commissioned a big basket in fall 2024 ago, announced this week that Alston set the record with his “Big Percy” basket. He got started in February 2025.

A February City Paper story by Herb Frazier first profiled Alston’s effort. The story described the basket like this: “At 5 feet high and nearly 4 feet across with 80 pounds of tan sweetgrass and palmetto fronds, red long-leaf pine needles and brown marsh bulrush, the basket represents ‘the biggest and baddest of my career,’” said Alston.

The basketmaker, who has been sewing baskets for 25 years, said he named the work for an intimidating character of the same name in the 1974 movie Uptown Saturday Night.

“I would not say this is the biggest (basket) ever, but this is the first documented” basket of its size, Alston explained in February just before the basket’s debut in the museum’s Lipscomb gallery.

A party celebrating Alston’s achievement is planned for 10:30 a.m. Aug. 7 at the state museum. It will feature a live performance by Grammy-winning musical artists Ranky Tanky.

In other arts news, the S.C. Arts Commission has awarded eight $10,000 arts fellowships, four of which went to Charleston artists.

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