Elsie Watty basket display

Elsie Watty basket display

Basket making

Basketwork

Cherokee baskets

Handicraft

This historic photograph was made by an unknown photographer in 1968 at an unknown Native American competition in Oklahoma. Elsie Watty's white oak baskets are seen at right. 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 was born in 1935 and 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.

Unknown

Photograph Collection

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

1968

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

jpg;

photographs

StillImage

15904

https://southernappalachiandigitalcollections.org/object/15904

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

7" x 5.25"(dimension)

Craft Revival