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Ramona Lossie |
| Ramona Lossie, basketweaver, grew up in the
Painttown community in Cherokee.
The following biography from The Cherokee Artist Directory, 2001, Cherokee, North Carolina by Barbara Duncan, Freeman Owle, Amy Davis and Tess Thraves, published by the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in collaboration with the North Carolina Arts Council and the Cultural Resources Division of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is used with permission from the editors. |
| "Ramona Lossie demonstrates doubleweave rivercane,
white oak, and maple basketmaking. She can also teach hands-on
workshops to groups of any age, but particularly enjoys working with
young people. Using pre-packaged materials, she will teach
workshops on weaving white oak and maple baskets. She workshops on
rivercane basketweaving begin with collecting rivercane, making splints,
and finally weaving the basket. She grew up in the Painttown community in Cherokee and learned basketweaving from watching her mother and grandmother. After graduating from high school, she continued her education at Western Carolina University and the University of Tennessee. In her early twenties, she began to see basketweaving as something she could do as an artist. Now she supports herself through basketweaving so she can continue her family traditions and stay home with her two girls. Ramona often travels from her home in Cherokee, North Carolina, to Knoxville, Tennessee. She has done many exhibitions and demonstrations at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and helped to organize a Native American exhibition celebration at the university. She has participated in numerous fairs and powwows by demonstrating and teaching basketweaving, and by selling her work. Her work has won blue ribbons at festivals in Chicago, Albuquerque, and Wisconsin, and it has been featured in an Atlanta newspaper. Her baskets are on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and in museums in Albuquerque, Chicago, Atlanta, and in Florida. In Cherokee her work is sold at Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, Talking Leaves, Bigmeet Pottery, and the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. Ramona Lossie will travel anywhere to teach and demonstrate. For distances over two hundred miles from Cherokee, she requires a deposit for mileage. She recommends initiating contact at least two months before scheduled events. She can be contacted by mail. Her fees are negotiable and she requires reimbursement for travel expenses. She also requests permission to sell her work at demonstrations and workshops." Ramona Lossie |
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