Eva Wolfe facts for kids

Eva Wolfe (born July 24, 1922 – died February 6, 2004) was an amazing basket maker from North Carolina. She was famous for making special baskets from rivercane. These baskets were a very old and traditional art form of the Cherokee people.

Eva Wolfe was especially known for a difficult weaving style called doubleweave. This technique makes a basket that looks perfect both inside and out. She won several important awards for her beautiful work, including the Brown-Hudson Folklore Award in 1988 and the North Carolina Heritage Award in 1989.

Eva Wolfe: A Master Basket Weaver

Her Early Life and Learning

Eva Wolfe was born in a place called Soco, which is part of the Qualla Boundary. This area is a special land for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. From a young age, Eva learned how to weave baskets from her mother. She also learned from her aunt, Lottie Queen Stamper, who was a well-known Cherokee basket weaving teacher.

Eva realized that only a few older weavers still knew how to make rivercane doubleweave baskets. She decided to focus on keeping this special art alive. She continued to weave baskets throughout her whole life. She also raised eleven children on the Qualla Boundary.

The Art of Doubleweave Baskets

To make her baskets, Eva and her husband, Amble, would travel far. Every April, they would go about 80 miles to find and cut the right kind of river cane. This plant was very important for her weaving.

Eva also gathered plants to make natural dyes for her baskets. She used bloodroot to make red colors. She used butternut to make brown colors. She would use different knives to split each cane stalk into four thin strips. These strips were then ready for weaving.

The doubleweave basket technique is very tricky. It means weaving one basket inside another at the same time. This creates a basket that has no rough edges inside or out. It looks perfect on both sides. Eva Wolfe sometimes worked with as many as 120 cane strips for just one basket! She kept the cane soft by dipping it in water often while she worked.

Sharing Her Talent

Eva Wolfe's beautiful baskets were shown in many places. In 1969, her work was part of an exhibition. This show was put together by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board and Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, Inc..

In 1980, her baskets were displayed again. They were part of the very first exhibition at the Appalachian Center for Crafts in Tennessee. In 1978, the National Endowment for the Arts even gave money to create a special exhibition just for her work.

Awards and Recognition

Eva Wolfe won many awards for her amazing art. In 1968, her work won first place in a show. This show was sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

In 1988, she received the Brown-Hudson Folklore Award. This award came from the North Carolina Folklore Society. The next year, in 1989, she won the North Carolina Heritage Award. These awards showed how important her basket weaving was to her culture and to art.

Later Life and Legacy

Eva Wolfe passed away on February 6, 2004. She died in Cherokee, North Carolina. Her dedication to traditional Cherokee basket weaving, especially the doubleweave technique, helped keep this important art form alive for future generations.