Basket: white oak, purse

This undated Indian Arts and Crafts Board photograph is of a white oak purse basket by Carol Welch. The basket has white oak drop handles and is woven in the Stairway to Heaven design, a design more common to rivercane basketry. Carol Smith Welch was the daughter of Helen Bradley Smith, an accomplished Cherokee basket weaver. Her aunt, Eva Bradley, was also a basket weaver. Born in 1940, Welch learned to weave white oak baskets by watching her mother and later learned to weave rivercane and honeysuckle baskets from Lottie Stamper in school basketry classes. While at school, she also learned the double weave method of making rivercane baskets and, later, became Lottie Stamper’s assistant. Her husband, Davis Welch, is a master mask maker. Welch lives in the Big Cove Community of the Qualla Indian Boundary, North Carolina