#ebci

This piece is called “The Ones Who Gather” 2025 - Rez Dog Art Studio

This is in the permanent collection of The Museum of the Cherokee People.

Artist Statement - “The Ones Who Gather”

“I come from a long line of women who gather—around the table, around the fire, around each other.

This piece honors them: the ones who stir the pot, string the beads, tell the stories, and stitch the threads of our lives together. These dolls represent the heartbeat of my Cherokee and Appalachian heritage—women who carry culture not in books, but in their hands, their voices, and their everyday acts of care.

In our community, healing happens when we gather. We cook. We create. We laugh. We remember. This is how tradition survives—not only through ceremony, but through shared meals, quiet making, and talk that moves like water between generations.

I made this for the seventh generation, so they’ll know:

We were here, and we loved each other deeply.

We held onto beauty, even when the world tried to take it.

We made things—because making is remembering.

These dolls are not just figures.

They are the circle I come from.

And the circle I leave behind.”

I created this last year. I was asked to create a piece that would represent me and that people 7 generations from now would see. I wanted to let others know the memories some of us have when we did purposefully gathered to cook meals , socialize and work on something."

Each doll represents an era of Cherokee time. Pre colonization, colonization, the trail of tears and today. The ghost of each era sit with the woman who sat alone. They sit with her. She feels their spirit around her as she beads. We are never alone.

Notice the tiny details of the doll making a cornhusk doll. And the one beading a tiny tsi-s-du medallion. The older woman who has river cane splints (splints from Gabe Crowe’s basket scraps) given to me from Gabe Crowe’s mother.

Cherokee Rivercane purse - Artist unknown

This purse or "shopper" basket was made from rivercane. Although its maker is not known, the form, material, technique, and pattern are typical of Cherokee basketry made between the 1920s and the present.

i went to college in north alabama and frequently took trips into the mountains, coming in via the "tail of the dragon," a winding section of hwy 111 connecting tn to west nc. it spits you out near tapoco dam and about an hour away you can loop through cherokee and bryson's city to get to clingman's dome, the highest point in smoky mountains national park. i went through there probably a half-dozen times in college and went back for my honeymoon in june.

i just saw a video of the flooding at cherokee island park and it just broke my heart. as far as i know, the res in that area depends largely on tourism. there's a lot of emphasis on cherokee cultural heritage, some of which does seem over-emphasized because it's good for tourism. there's dozens of absolutely beautiful waterfalls, some of them 100+ ft, near the town. there's always elk nearby, especially in the fall the road from cherokee to bryson city has a field where there's almost always entire herds of elk and cars lining the shoulder for miles as people take pictures.

and i don't know how bad the damage is there but i know their economy is going to suffer so intensely. the damaged roads are preventing people from getting there. local musicians are hosting free concerts with donations to help the town and people can't get there to donate. my heart was already aching for asheville and boone, places incredibly special to me from the years i lived in south carolina and would travel up there for mountain vacations, but seeing floods in cherokee just broke my heart.

i've never a single time posted to tumblr asking people to donate but please, if you can, help these communities recover. the cherokee people in nc have such a rich, beautiful display of who they are and it's agonizing to think of them losing that, after losing so much else, because of the economic repercussions of helene blocking transportation to the area and resource scarcity in the mountains making it detrimental for tourism to happen right now in many areas. cherokee has said they're open to visitors, but be watchful if you visit the mountains of where you travel through and where you take resources from.

hi. i’m sorry you have to deal with all this intergenerational trauma. i wish so much I could give you advice but I am not first nations American and have no idea where I could direct you, sorry. the only advice I can give is maybe to look into organisations that help Natives locate their connections/records, or look into locating any records that may indicate your family’s specific connections. again I am so sorry I can’t help more! x

Double Weave Rivercane Storage Basket - Eva Wolfe - Date unknown

This double weave storage basket was made by Eva Wolfe, a Cherokee basket weaver who received national honors later in her life. Storage baskets such as these were used to store foodstuffs and household goods.

The double weave makes for a tight basket; some double weave baskets can even hold water. The double weave is a complex traditional technique mastered by only the most accomplished Cherokee basket weavers. This basket was woven from rivercane that was dyed using walnut for the brown color and bloodroot for the orange diagonal bands running across the outside of the basket. Rivercane, walnut, and bloodroot are native plants of the region. The pattern in this basket appears to be a unique adaptation of the Flowing Water (or Flowing River) design, with intersecting diagonals running along the inside and outside of the basket.

Rivercane Storage Basket - Edmund Youngbird - Date unknown

This large rivercane storage basket was made by Edmund Youngbird. Baskets such as these were made to store domestic goods, from dry foodstuffs to clothing. The natural aeration of the single weave allows the stored goods to remain dry. The basket is woven from rivercane that was dyed with butternut and bloodroot, plants native to the region. The butternut-dyed rivercane is brown; the fainter orange cane is from bloodroot.

The basket is woven upward from a rectangular base with a central dominant design set on the diagonal. The circumference of the basket tapers inward before flaring out again at the rim. A series of bands surrounds the top third of the basket, alternating between butternut and bloodroot dyed cane in a linked Chain design.

Rivercane storage basket - Eva Wolfe

The pattern is Cross on the Hill 2 or Stairway to Heaven.

The basket was woven upward from a square base with an overall diagonal design. The circumference of the basket tapers inward before flaring out again at the rim. A series of bands surrounds the top of the basket, alternating between walnut and bloodroot dyed cane.

The colors are from traditional native plants used to dye the rivercane. The dark brown is from walnut and the brighter orange from bloodroot. The basket was woven in a diagonal Cross on a Hill design; its neck and rim are encircled by a double Chain.