Ramona Lossie

Ramona Lossie is known for her double-weave basketry using rivercane, white oak, and natural dyes. She can also teach hands-on workshops to groups of any age, but particularly enjoys working with young people. Using pre-packaged materials, she teaches workshops on weaving white oak and maple baskets. Her workshops on rivercane basket weaving begin with collecting the rivercane, making splints, dyeing splints, and finally weaving the basket. Her knowledge of the rivercane basket-weaving tradition became crucial several years ago, when she and her sister Lucille became the only living practitioners of that art among the Eastern Band. They taught classes sponsored by the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual and the Museum of the Cherokee People until the tradition became firmly rooted in the community once again.

She grew up in the Painttown community in Cherokee and learned basket weaving by 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 view her craftsmanship skills as a way of carrying on a family tradition.

Ramona often travels from her home in Cherokee, North Carolina, to Knoxville, Tennessee. She has participated in many exhibitions and demonstrations at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and helped organize a Native American exhibition and celebration at the university. She has participated in numerous events, demonstrating and teaching basket weaving and selling her work. Her baskets have won numerous national awards and are on display in several museums, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and in Albuquerque, Chicago, Atlanta, and Florida. In Cherokee, her work is sold at Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, Talking Leaves, Bigmeet Pottery, and the Museum of the Cherokee People.

*Born 1964- Died 2025