Folk Arts - Master Artist - Carol Emarthle-Douglas

Carol Emarthle-Douglas is a master basketweaver from Bothell, Washington. She has always been drawn to Native art and became inspired to weave baskets from her sister-in-law Diane Willard, a master Haida basketweaver, and also from a course she attended at the Seattle Art Museum taught by Roger Fernandez. In 1993, Emarthle-Douglas learned coiled linen basket weaving techniques from Marilyn Moore at the Basketry School in Seattle. She became an associate member of the Northwest Native American Basketweavers Association (NNABA) in 1997 and attends their gatherings each year with other master weavers to contribute to and learn new techniques.

Emarthle-Douglas has witnessed the decline of Native American arts and basket weaving, especially in the urban communities of King County. Because of this, she has worked with the Eastside Native American Committee to teach basketry to Native youth. In sharing the history and techniques of basketry, she helps to sustain an important art form and to reconnect individuals to their traditional practices.

A recipient of a 2008 Folk Arts Apprenticeship grant, Emarthle-Douglas will teach apprentices Laura Wong-Whitebear and Darlene J. James coiled waxed linen basketry. They will become proficient in this technique and then create baskets that incorporate a design from each apprentice’s tradition (the Colville and Pomo tribes). Wong-Whitebear began basketry in 1992, and plans to continue learning about and sharing this art form with Native and Non-Native American communities. James was introduced to basket-making from her mother, who is a California Pomo basketmaker, and works to become a master Pomo basketweaver in hopes of preserving this diminishing art form. Emarthle-Douglas will teach her apprentices the traditional coiling technique using non-traditional materials.