For my basket weaving, I follow in the footsteps of my predecessors. I start by gathering a variety of materials: willow sticks, hazel sticks, willow root, spruce root, pine root, alder bark, cedar bark, Oregon grape root, beargrass, cedar, juncus, tule, maiden hair fern, and woodwardia fern. My teachers taught me the proper seasons for gathering and how to process the fibers to ready them for weaving. Part of the challenge is to figure out when it’s time to harvest and not to take too much—just what one needs. You only take what you need, gather what you need, but never over. I give back to the land by offering some tobacco in thanks. 
Baskets are valuable for a variety of uses. We gather some of our traditional berries in them, the huckleberry. I’ve make fish traps that have one end open and lined with spikes so that the fish or eels swim in and can’t get out. Basket materials also have medicinal value. We make baby rattles out of willow root, which contains natural aspirin and helps the babies when their teething. Some of my favorite baskets to weave include those baby rattles as well as trinket, tobacco, and burden baskets.
 

My elders fought the government to have their treaty rights restored; they wanted to revitalize practices like dancing and powwows. Because the CCBUTI had been terminated in 1954, like so many other Indian Tribes in Oregon, their culture was disrupted, their heritage no longer accessible. Although the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians was finally restored in 1982, there were only a few traditional basket designs available to serve as models. To learn how to weave, I looked to nearby indigenous peoples for assistance. I worked with a variety of master basket weavers from the Karuk and Yurok Tribes, whose traditional lands in northern California and southern Oregon border those of the CCBUTI. Well-known master basket weavers Wilverna Reece, Alice Lincoln Cook, and Lena Herd were and are my mentors; I also studied with Dr. Margaret Matheson, who has been active in revitalizing Native basket making in western Oregon.

Keeping the use of some of our baskets ties us in with our ancestors. The old spirits recognize us while we are high in the mountains picking. My goal in my lifetime is to train at least 10 master weavers in our tribe. I can’t wait to be an elder and overlook how far we have come as a tribe

In 2022, I received a Traditional Arts Recovery Program award from the Oregon Arts Commission to create new baskets in my Tribe’s tradition.

As for honors, it is always and honor to sit and weave with the membership. They are what drive me daily. The tribal membership and community here in southern Oregon send me beautiful messages and tell me how proud they are of me and they are thankful to see the teachings still being used on the lands. This makes my heart happy.