Elsie Watty

Elsie Watty

Artisans

Basket makers

Basket making

Basketwork

Cherokee baskets

Cherokee women

Manners and customs

In this undated Indian Arts and Crafts Board photograph, basket weaver Elsie Watty is using a knife to scrape white oak splits to the proper width to achieve uniform thickness and smoothness. Elsie Welch Watty (1935-2016) was a master Cherokee basket weaver who specialized in making white oak baskets and was known for creating her own designs. She lived and worked on the Galamore Branch in the Big Cove community near Cherokee. Although her mother and grandmother each wove baskets, neither of them taught her the craft. Instead, she learned by observation and began to make baskets when she was ten years old. In 1977 her work was exhibited at the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual artisan cooperative. While she was an active basket weaver, she is said to have made 100 baskets a year.

United States. Indian Arts and Crafts Board

Photograph Collection

Hunter Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC 28723

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

jpg;

photographs

StillImage

10977

https://southernappalachiandigitalcollections.org/object/10977

2009-01-13

All rights reserved. For permissions and use, contact Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, Inc., Cherokee, NC 28719;

Qualla Boundary

Appalachian Region, Southern

10" x 8"(dimension)

Cherokee Traditions