Basket: white oak, vase

Basket: white oak, vase

Basket making

Cherokee baskets

Handicraft

This undated white oak “vase” basket was made by Cherokee basket weaver Mary Ellen Queen. It is made in the shape of a Greek amphora with large flared handles on either side. Such non-traditional “fancy” baskets were made to sell or trade evidence that crafts were becoming an economic product of the region. The upright basket is made with white oak splits woven upward from a circular base, the basket necks in before flaring outward to an circular rim. The darker contrasting oak strips have been dyed brown with walnut and orange with bloodroot, both traditional native dye plants among Eastern Band Cherokee. Mary Ellen Queen specialized in white oak baskets. She taught all six of her children the craft. Her daugher Lottie Queen Stamper (1907-1987) was one of Cherokee's best-known basket weavers. Stamper taught basket weaving at the Cherokee school from 1937 until 1966.

Queen, Mary Ellen

Artifact Collection

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

unknown

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

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crafts (art genres)

StillImage

15985

https://southernappalachiandigitalcollections.org/object/15985

2009-04-27

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Qualla Boundary

Appalachian Region, Southern

12.5" x 13" x 10"(dimension)

Craft Revival