Gunter Anderson was ONAB's featured artist in the July 2004 newsletter. "Gunter is a registered member of the Cherokee Nation and is the daughter of Sallie Mayo Morgan, A Dawes Commission original enrollee. She became interested in weaving a few years ago and is now an award winning weaver. Her favorite baskets are large storage baskets and rib baskets. She uses all natural materials such as deer antlers, pine needles, and feathers. She also works with buckbrush and honeysuckle.
Basket weaving has become a passion for Gunter and at 84 years young, she feels she has plenty of time to make a lot more baskets. Gunter lives in Cushing, Okla. and harvests materials from her own acreage. We are proud to have Gunter as a member of ONAB, and wish her many more years of weaving." Article by Tammy Liegerot Elder, July, 2004
On 6/15/05, ONAB recommended that Gunter be included in the Carriers of Culture, Living Native Traditions projects. She provided documentation and it was mailed to Michigan State University Museum, Dr. Marsha MacDowell, curator.
I include information from her artist form. Gunter Payne Anderson is from the Holly clan. She is active as a member of the Cherokee Artists Association in Tahlequah, OK.
Her basket teachers were Bill Phelps and Bernice Kopel. She made one basket with each teacher. She wrote "I am continuing to learn every day. Mostly self-taught by studying many books on basketry, visiting museums and studying baskets. I like to draft new (or old) techniques and designs that I see on baskets." She uses buckbrush and honeysuckle for natural and native materials. She wrote "I gather, strip leaves, coil and boil for 6 hours. Then strip the bark. I am learning to strip river cane, but do not gather or split the cane. I am in the process of planting a cane break I gather walnuts, hickory nuts, Indian paint brush, goldenrod, etc."
She weaves traditional designs such as The Chief's Double Daughter, Man in a Coffin, different versions of the star (Noon Day Sun). I create many of my own designs." She believes a basket should be closely woven with a level base. The form should be symmetrical or commensurate in size to form a pleasing balance. Pleasing to the eye. A good basket could be useful or as a decoration.
Gunter believes that weaving is important to Native Culture because it has survived through out history. It is important to humanity and the art of weaving should be taught to future generations of Native Americans so that it will not be completely lost. Many of the designs have been lost but perhaps with the help of museums and willing weavers, the existing designs can be drafted and taught. Gunter, like many Natives in Oklahoma, were raised like the average white Americans. She did not live near the Eastern Cherokee reservation or in Cherokee Nation Territory growing up. She once wove baskets because she was fascinated by the ability to create an object from reed and was driven to learn different techniques and make different forms using commercial and self gathered materials. In 2004 she met a young Cherokee couple at a Cherokee artist Association Meeting. They offered to teach her to process river cane for basket making. She has been peeling the bark and learning to make from the cane splints, diagonal woven baskets.
Gunter gives her tribal descent from her grandfather, Gideon Hazen Morgan. His genealogy is recorded in Starr's History of the Cherokees.
Entered by Peggy Brennan, June 16, 2005
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