Vanessa Finney: Chantele, I haven't made it to an exhibit of yours, but I have seen some pictures of your work online. So let's start with you describing the range of products that you weave.
Chantele Rilatos: Well, I've been weaving for a few years now, about three-and-a-half-years, and during that time, I've made a variety of different baskets. Now I've made a handful of utilitarian-style baskets, such as plates and gathering baskets. I've made a cooking basket, like a soup acorn basket, we call it, and I do some basket jewelry, and I've made a few baby rattles and baby baskets. And recently, my newest endeavor has been making ceremonial basket caps, which I've made two of, and I'm getting started on my third now. In reference to my art shows, I didn't start making baskets to do these art shows. I was just doing it as a way to honor my people and participate in my culture and do something that I felt was meaningful and important to me. And it just so happened that I've had two great friends now, Indigenous artists and curators, Leonard Harmon and Steph Littlebird who invited me to put my baskets in their shows. And so that was something new for me this year. That was a really sweet and awesome opportunity that I was not expecting. I never thought I would do something like that.
VF: How exciting. And you were in about your mid-20s when you decided to take this up?
CR: Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm 28 now. So about three-and-a-half years ago in the summer is when I had just started really getting my hands on it.
VF: What materials do you use to weave these products?
CR: Well, for our sticks, we use hazel sticks and willow sticks primarily, preferably - if we can get our hands on them. Hazel sticks just because they're so much stronger, which is needed for our big, strong baskets to carry our babies and our big gathering baskets and fish baskets - all sorts of different types of baskets that use nice, strong Hazel sticks. And we also use spruce roots and willow roots. We use an overlay material, which gives our patterns and designs colors in our baskets. And those are bear grass that we bleach with the sun to turn white, and we use woodwardia fern that we dye with alder bark to give us that nice red or copper color in our baskets. And we use the stems of maidenhair fern for the black. So those are a few different materials that we use. I think that's kind of it. I mean, there's a few other materials that we would use, but I haven't necessarily got my hands on to use, maybe like some pine roots and a few other types of sticks. But, yeah, that's the main ones.
VF: And how do you physically gather all that? Where do you go?
CR: These are all native plants to our homeland here in Southern Oregon, spanning Western Oregon really into Northern California, basket materials that we use. And traditionally, I think we had areas that our families tended to and that we'd regularly go to to gather. Today, it's kind of harder to find good access to safe and good materials, but we still do have places or folks that work with us. And I think really it鈥檚 just finding your own patches and tending to your own areas out in the woods, out in the forest, on the land.
VF: Tell us about the technique of working with some of those materials. I was interested to hear that you can actually make soup dishes. So it must be a very tight weave.
CR: Yeah, those soup bowls, those are made with spruce roots, and it does require a really tight weave. And why do we use those spruce roots? Because when they get wet, they swell, and so they help with that watertight form. So all of these - we call it traditional ecological knowledge, but really, it's just thousands and thousands of years of science that our ancestors perfected and knew the best of the best and what worked and all these things that thankfully were saved and passed forward for us to us.
And these styles and techniques you talk about - when I was a young girl, I was really fortunate my late great-grandmother, Agnes Baker-Pilgrim, who's really known in the Rogue Valley. And growing up, she had a lot of our family baskets and old baskets made by ancestors in our home. And so I just grew up with an appreciation for our traditional baskets around in her home, and so that was really special for me. We didn't actually have an active weaver in my family, besides a cousin of my mother's, who I called my aunt. She has passed on now, but when I was a young girl, she was always out gathering her material. To be a basket weaver requires you to be out in the land and having a relationship with the plants and gathering. And so she was always doing that, and when she came home with her materials, I'd be playing with her kids, my cousins, and she'd bring up those materials back for us to help clean with her from a young age. I think that was kind of my first introduction. I think it had a big influence on me.
But like I mentioned, it wasn't till about three-and-a-half years ago that I really got my hands on it. I had reached out to Robert Kinta, a Siletz tribal elder in our community, and he's a council member currently. I knew that he knew basket weaving, and so I had reached out to him and asked him if he would teach me how to start and make a basket and the techniques, and any other teachings that he felt were important for me to know. And my dad was living in Siletz at the time, not too far from where Robert was living, so I spent a weekend with my dad in Siletz and met with Robert on his property out in Logsden, just outside of Siletz. And he lived on his family's allotment still. And so we sat down there by the river, and he spent the weekend showing me how to start a basket and how to twine and how to add in and was super generous and handed me a bundle of sticks and roots. So that way, when I came home, I could continue on in my journey with that. And I really just fell in love with it within a two-day span, and I'd come back at night to my dad's house and just tell him everything I learned, and probably just talk his ear off, because I was quite literally obsessed with it. And yeah, I came home, and I just totally took off with it, and I've been weaving ever since that weekend.
VF: It's a wonderful feeling to first get mentorship and then to really click with something. Chantele, I believe I heard you say for thousands of years - is that how long this traditional weaving has been practiced among your people?
"It's really a connection to the land, to our homeland."
CR: Yeah, I mean, we say 鈥渟ince time immemorial,鈥� since the beginning of time that our people have been here and baskets are part of everyday life, and they have been since the beginning of time of our people. So every tool and bucket and pot and pan and carrier that we have today, those were all baskets used before we had those items. And so in our ceremonies, everything really depends on these baskets. And I think more than just the product of it, too, it's really a connection to the land, to our homeland. I think especially too, for me as a Siletz tribal member and person, we have a kind of a devastating history, I guess, in the Rogue Valley and our removal to the Siletz reservation. And so, colonization really disrupted a lot of our life ways, but our ancestors really fought and made sure that these ways lived on, despite it being outlawed to do so. And for me, I just feel it's just a great connection to the past and to my ancestors to be a basket weaver, because it returns me back to my homeland.
VF: I want to take a moment to acknowledge that the Siletz people are living descendants here of the Tacoma, Shasta and Latgawa people, and JPR broadcasts from the campus of Southern Oregon University, which is on the homelands, historically, of those peoples. And when you say what areas in Oregon, tell us what areas in Oregon those people are historically from.
CR: Yeah, that would be a large segment itself. Historically the Siletz people span all of Western Oregon and touch into Northern California and Washington a little bit. And so I'll just speak to my family. The Rogue River and Rogue Valley is a huge area and where our original Confederation started at, and my grandma Aggie's family, my family where we come from. My grandmother Aggie was a Takelma person, and we come directly from right outside of Grant鈥檚 Pass at Jumpoff Joe Creek. And her aunt Frances also says that we come from Table Rocks and Cow Creek. So, a large area within the Rogue Valley that we span from, and then that's from my mother's side, my mom Tanya. And then my dad's side: He is also a Siletz tribal member and comes along from the Rogue River as well a little bit up in Galice. So, you know, strong connection to place from the Rogue Valley and along the Rogue River.
VF: Your creations were part of an exhibition in Newport earlier this year. Do you have any more upcoming shows? I know that was kind of a new thing for you, but I'm wondering where we can see your work or even buy it and learn more about this tradition.
CR: Thank you. Well, I do have another show actually coming up back in Newport, starting in January, going until the beginning of March, so I'll be back there. Otherwise, I have created a little Instagram page, mostly for myself, just to put all of my stuff that I've made, if I, if I remember, to take photos of it, just to have it in a place. And so my Instagram art page, I guess, is ChantelleRilatos.creations. So, yeah, I share a lot of my work there, but otherwise, that's my next upcoming show, currently.
VF: Okay, well, I wish I had time to talk a lot more with you, but I want to thank you so much for joining me today. It was a pleasure. And also, congratulations on celebrating your baby's birthday yesterday.
CR: Thank you. Thank you.
VF: We know you had to get childcare for today, so I appreciate your time.
CR: Thank you. I appreciate the time as well, and being able to talk with you a little bit about our culture and my basket weaving. So thank you.
VF: Good luck with your next show!
Chantele Rilatos鈥� weaving work will be displayed at Visual Art Center in Newport, Oregon January 11 - March 2, 2025. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
