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Little is known of Tootsie Dick’s early life, and no photograph has surfaced to describe her. She lived in Antelope Valley, occupied by both Washoe and Paiute peoples, among whom there has been frequent intermarriage and interchange of weaving ideas. Tootsie Dick’s father was apparently a non-Native man named Randolph. Her Washoe grandmother was Washoe Dick’s first wife, whose name is not remembered but who many have been a sister of Louisa Keyser (Dat So La Lee). Tootsie Dick may then have been born in the 1890s. she died by her own hand in 1929, despondent over the death of her six-year-old daughter from spinal meningitis (Cohodas 1990, pp. 167-68, 175-76).
If Keyser were indeed Tootsie’s great aunt, it would explain the intertwining of careers. Even though her residence at Coleville in Antelope Valley was far from Carson City, Dick followed Keyser’s example of selling her baskets through the Cohn Emporium. More important, Tootsie Dick’s baskets appear with Keyser’s in all the collection of minor baskets that Keyser sold privately at Lake Tahoe and which were therefore not entered into the Cohn’s L. K. ledger. Dick must have visited frequently with Louisa Keyser, who perhaps helped her sell her baskets. The Cohns, too, associated Tootsie Dick with Louisa Keyser. When Edward S. Curtis, the famous photographer of Native Americans, visited the Emporium in 1925, Abe Cohn arranged only the baskets of Louisa Keyser and Tootsie Dick for him to photograph. While Keyser’s baskets were identified in Curtis’ publication, Tootsie Dick’s were not, and they were mistakenly attributed to another Coleville weaver before the documentation surfaced (Cohodas 1979b, pp. 27, 68).
Like Louisa Keyser, Tootsie Dick produced many three-rod coiled degikup for the curio trade, incorporating Keyser’s three-colored design of red (branches of western redbud, black (mud-dyed root fibers of bracken fern), and white (branches of willow). However, despite their close connection, Tootsie Dick did not imitate Louisa Keyser’s motifs and arrangements, unlike Scees Bryant. Instead, Tootsie Dick appears to have been closely influenced by her step-grandmother, Washoe Dick’s second wife, Minnie Dick, who also sold works through the Cohn’s Emporium Company. For example, both weavers share the use of large-scale designs in alternating or zigzag arrangements. Tootsie Dick’s innovation was to combine these two formats, sometimes placing alternating motifs in a subtly zigzagged arrangement. The Thaw Collection basket attributed to Tootsie Dick, a three-rod coiled degikup, exemplifies her style in the combination of zigzag and alternating formats as well as the dramatic degikup form with squat shape, bulging shoulder and wide mouth. In turn, Tootsie Dick strongly influenced two other Coleville weavers: Lena Frank Dick, married to Washoe Dick’s son Levi; and her sister Lillie Frank James. Together these four weavers developed a distinct Antelope Valley variant of the Washoe curio basket style.
Unlike Louisa Keyser and Scees Bryant, Tootsie Dick adopted the representational butterfly, bird, and plant designs introduced to Washoe basketry by Sarah Mayo, a Carson Valley weaver. In Tootsie Dick’s baskets, large, irregularly shaped but solidly colored forms, as appear in red on the Thaw Collection basket, may have evolved from her representational forms—on some baskets they appear almost bug-like.
Like Louisa Keyser and Scees Bryant, Tootsie Dick developed a distinctive style in twined basketweaving as well, especially the covering of glass containers. However, Tootsie Dick also took up the recently introduced (ca. 1920) technique of covering glass containers with beadwork, producing some of the finest and most distinctive works in that medium as well. Her twining and beadwork share a preference for combining bands of contrasting connected and spaced motifs. (From the Catalog of the Thaw Collection of American Indian Art, 2nd ed.)
Marvin Cohodas
ProvenanceAbe and Amy Cohn, The Emporium Company, Carson City, Nevada; Natalie Fay Linn, Portland, Oregon
BibliographyVincent, Gilbert T. Masterpieces of American Indian Art. New York: Harry Abrams, 1995, p.64.
Vincent, Gilbert et al. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2000, p.288.
Fognell, Eva and Alexander Brier Marr, eds. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Fenimore Art Museum, 2nd ed. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2016, p. 309.
Artist
Tootsie Dick Samca
(1885 - 1929, Washoe)
Basket
Datec. 1923-1928
DimensionsOverall: 5 1/2 × 10 1/2 in. (14 × 26.7 cm)
Object numberT0142
Credit LineGift of Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw
Label TextTootsie Dick Sam was such an exceptionally fine and innovative Washoe weaver that, after 1925, Abe Cohn groomed her to become Louisa Keyser’s replacement as the “greatest living Washoe weaver.”Little is known of Tootsie Dick’s early life, and no photograph has surfaced to describe her. She lived in Antelope Valley, occupied by both Washoe and Paiute peoples, among whom there has been frequent intermarriage and interchange of weaving ideas. Tootsie Dick’s father was apparently a non-Native man named Randolph. Her Washoe grandmother was Washoe Dick’s first wife, whose name is not remembered but who many have been a sister of Louisa Keyser (Dat So La Lee). Tootsie Dick may then have been born in the 1890s. she died by her own hand in 1929, despondent over the death of her six-year-old daughter from spinal meningitis (Cohodas 1990, pp. 167-68, 175-76).
If Keyser were indeed Tootsie’s great aunt, it would explain the intertwining of careers. Even though her residence at Coleville in Antelope Valley was far from Carson City, Dick followed Keyser’s example of selling her baskets through the Cohn Emporium. More important, Tootsie Dick’s baskets appear with Keyser’s in all the collection of minor baskets that Keyser sold privately at Lake Tahoe and which were therefore not entered into the Cohn’s L. K. ledger. Dick must have visited frequently with Louisa Keyser, who perhaps helped her sell her baskets. The Cohns, too, associated Tootsie Dick with Louisa Keyser. When Edward S. Curtis, the famous photographer of Native Americans, visited the Emporium in 1925, Abe Cohn arranged only the baskets of Louisa Keyser and Tootsie Dick for him to photograph. While Keyser’s baskets were identified in Curtis’ publication, Tootsie Dick’s were not, and they were mistakenly attributed to another Coleville weaver before the documentation surfaced (Cohodas 1979b, pp. 27, 68).
Like Louisa Keyser, Tootsie Dick produced many three-rod coiled degikup for the curio trade, incorporating Keyser’s three-colored design of red (branches of western redbud, black (mud-dyed root fibers of bracken fern), and white (branches of willow). However, despite their close connection, Tootsie Dick did not imitate Louisa Keyser’s motifs and arrangements, unlike Scees Bryant. Instead, Tootsie Dick appears to have been closely influenced by her step-grandmother, Washoe Dick’s second wife, Minnie Dick, who also sold works through the Cohn’s Emporium Company. For example, both weavers share the use of large-scale designs in alternating or zigzag arrangements. Tootsie Dick’s innovation was to combine these two formats, sometimes placing alternating motifs in a subtly zigzagged arrangement. The Thaw Collection basket attributed to Tootsie Dick, a three-rod coiled degikup, exemplifies her style in the combination of zigzag and alternating formats as well as the dramatic degikup form with squat shape, bulging shoulder and wide mouth. In turn, Tootsie Dick strongly influenced two other Coleville weavers: Lena Frank Dick, married to Washoe Dick’s son Levi; and her sister Lillie Frank James. Together these four weavers developed a distinct Antelope Valley variant of the Washoe curio basket style.
Unlike Louisa Keyser and Scees Bryant, Tootsie Dick adopted the representational butterfly, bird, and plant designs introduced to Washoe basketry by Sarah Mayo, a Carson Valley weaver. In Tootsie Dick’s baskets, large, irregularly shaped but solidly colored forms, as appear in red on the Thaw Collection basket, may have evolved from her representational forms—on some baskets they appear almost bug-like.
Like Louisa Keyser and Scees Bryant, Tootsie Dick developed a distinctive style in twined basketweaving as well, especially the covering of glass containers. However, Tootsie Dick also took up the recently introduced (ca. 1920) technique of covering glass containers with beadwork, producing some of the finest and most distinctive works in that medium as well. Her twining and beadwork share a preference for combining bands of contrasting connected and spaced motifs. (From the Catalog of the Thaw Collection of American Indian Art, 2nd ed.)
Marvin Cohodas
ProvenanceAbe and Amy Cohn, The Emporium Company, Carson City, Nevada; Natalie Fay Linn, Portland, Oregon
BibliographyVincent, Gilbert T. Masterpieces of American Indian Art. New York: Harry Abrams, 1995, p.64.
Vincent, Gilbert et al. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2000, p.288.
Fognell, Eva and Alexander Brier Marr, eds. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Fenimore Art Museum, 2nd ed. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2016, p. 309.
On View
On view
