Merle Andersen is a Haida weaver from Haida Gwaii, also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands. She comes from a long line of Haida weavers: her mother Florence Davidson was a weaver, as was her grandmother Isabella Edenshaw who was a well-known weaver of baskets and hats, many of which were painted by her husband, master carver Charles Edenshaw. Merle’s father Robert Davidson, Sr. was a carver.
Merle was trained in the tradition by her mother Florence Davidson and her sisters Virginia Hunter and Agnes Davis. Other influential teachers were Dolores Churchill, April Churchill and Holly Churchill who are the decendants of Selina Peratrovich. Peratrovich was one of the preeminent teachers in the mid-twentieth century.
Merle states, “I like working with cedar and spruce root. When a project is finished, I feel very proud. I used to help my mother harvest roots and bark, but only became interested in weaving in 1994 when my sister Ginny (Virginia) Hunter offered to teach me. I left it for a couple of years, but started weaving again in 1996. Harvesting and preparation of the material are the hardest part of weaving and very time consuming.”