Catching up with Erin Pollard, Trust Shifts, Hopeful Baubles

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Happy Sunday. Here is this week’s grab bag of things to gander/ponder/pause on:

Catching up with Erin Pollard

I started noticing Erin Pollard and her young business, Underwater Weaving Studio, a summer or two ago. Like many fans of her work, I was transfixed by her bags and baskets first, then doubly drawn in by the fact that Erin, a fashion world veteran who grew up in Maine, started the whole thing alongside her mother, Polly, a former basket weaver for L.L. Bean. Everything about it stuck with me, including the beautiful weaving classes they offered. I’ve been fascinated by the regional origins of basketry for as long as I can remember because I grew up immersed in the Scots-Irish traditions of Appalachia. And when I started at G&G nearly two decades ago, I knew basketry was a subject I wanted to return to again and again, from producing long-form stories about legends in the genre like Mary Jackson to quicker bits about the next generation of makers. So it really adds up that Erin drew me in from the get-go. She’s not Southern, but that didn’t deter me from featuring her striped basket bags. When I caught up with Erin, I asked her about the importance of her teaching work. “As our lives become increasingly automated and disembodied, the demand for places where we can use our hands and share a physical room with other human beings will only grow,” she said. “People don't come to a workshop just to learn a skill; they come to regulate their nervous systems and be with others.” Boy do I agree with that.

I also wondered who Erin might want to apprentice if given the chance. “Ruth Asawa,” she said. “Coming from a background in dance, I look at her wire sculptures and see choreography. She understood spatial movement, physical repetition, and how a hollow vessel can transform the room around it. Spending a month in her studio, learning how she maintained such immense physical discipline while keeping her work so light and organic, would be a dream.”

Up next, Erin and Polly are working on pieces that revisit some of the basket forms and ideas Polly was making in the nineties. “I am really thrilled with it as it feels both nostalgic for both of us personally and really of the moment.”

One additional note: This whole basket thing is reaching a fever pitch with the new movie Wicker, which debuts in October, causing quite the kerfuffle online. Ikea even joined in on the action. Erin did too, with her usual hilarity. Follow her there, too, if you don’t already.

Trust Shifts

Last week, the folks at Pitchcraft posted the below about the trust shift happening in media and the pivot from print to Substack. It’s no secret that this is happening — with independent voices increasingly reshaping storytelling for niche audiences, as they noted below — and it’s really intriguing to see some of the comparisons their team made. I loved that they paired Veranda with yours truly, in large part because my former colleague Steele Marcoux is the Editor-In-Chief there and she is the BEST.

Hope-ful Baubles

I’ve featured the fun, colorful, costume-y jewelry by North Carolina native Loren Hope many times over the years, and it was a treat to reconnect with her in person last summer, too. I’m also loving her newest looks, especially this necklace, these earrings, this longer design, and these.

And a Few Extra Bits…

—I love a proper task light for reading in a cushy chair and I think the below articulating floor lamps from KRBNYC are the be-all and end-all in the category. But I also really love this very, very simple design. And all of these.

—A stranger once asked me if I was an art teacher and I was so flattered I almost lied and said yes. Perhaps Southern art teacher is my vibe? I’ll take it. And the fact that I really, really love the citrine and chartreuse goodness from Alex Mill’s fall drop tells you all you need to know. I even love the blue scrunchie worn like we did back in ye olden times. And, side note, that the model looks just like Beata Heuman, am I right???

—The endlessly creative Laurel Pantin, who I visited with here, has a new book coming this spring that will be a treat I’m sure.

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