Bal Harbour

and the Lure By Isabel Slone ALISON HAWTHORNE DEMING, THE GREAT - GREAT - GRANDDAUGHTER OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, HAS WRITTEN NUMEROUS BOOKS ON THE HUMAN CONNECTION TO THE NATURAL WORLD. HER LATEST TOME, A WOVEN WORLD, TAKES ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CRAFTSMANSHIP IN THE MODERN WORLD BY INTERROGATING HER OWN FAMILY'S HISTORY OF COUTURIERS. A Woven World begins inside a slumping cottage on Grand Manan, a remote island off the coast of New Brunswick, Canada, that has been in Alison Hawthorne Deming's family for generations. From there, it spins out into a wild and whimsical tale of the nature of craftsmanship and the value we assign to material objects. Deming weaves disparate threads, including the story of a sequined YSL "sardine dress," into a shimmering tale of beauty and loss that reminds us all to appreciate what we have before it is gone. We spoke on the phone about the origins of the book and the future of craftsmanship. Why is the preservation of craftsmanship so important to you? I've spent every summer since I was a child on this small island in the Canadian Maritimes and, every summer, I've watched men—they're almost all men—build these beautiful herring weirs along the shores. Throughout my life, I've witnessed that enterprise diminish. There used to be 100 of these structures around the island and now there are only 9 or 10. I felt that this was something that was going to leave the world, and that I was going to miss it profoundly. I'm always fighting against this radical loss that we live with—losing animals, losing places, losing a sense of confidence in the future. Anyone involved in making gives me hope that we do have the ability to carry these skills on, and that inspires me. It seems to me that the purpose of the book is to celebrate the beauty and one is just to try things. Everybody should think about what kind of making gives them pleasure. It could be making in the garden, or making in the kitchen. During Covid, a lot of people were cooking more than they'd ever done and finding pleasure in that. We should always start by thinking, "What in my life have I done as a maker that brought me joy and pleasure?" Many of us probably have parents or grandparents who were quite skilled as makers. We can look at what our ancestors did, that we no longer do, and see if those crafts are anything we might want to try our hand at. A minimum, we should be sharing those stories with one another, so that we begin to remember that these things are precious. I don't have a prescription for how people should live their lives; I just know we lose something very soulful when we lose our inventiveness and creativity. Where do you find hope for the future of craftsmanship? I make a decision to be hopeful. In spite of all that's being unmade in the world, if you look at the history of human beings and how we've been able to solve problems through our makers' skills, you'll see we are a very inventive species. That gives me hope. Some of the things we created have been destructive and we've learned later about the consequences. My hope comes from understanding the two- faced nature of making—how it can be used for good and bad—and saying, "I'm going to commit myself to making something that creates beauty, community and brings pleasure to my daily life." BEAUTY mastery that can be achieved through craftsmanship, but often this sentiment is conflated with loss. Why is that? It used to be that people made things out of necessity, but now it's not out of necessity, it's out of choice. A big part of the reason for that loss is the global capitalistic rampage that drives these small enterprises out of business. But, if you start practicing some kind of craft, you come to realize it's much more meaningful to make something for yourself than it is to buy it from a store. Making isn't cherished as much as it used to be. People have forgotten that making things is a beautiful part of being human. How can we all become better stewards of craftsmanship in our own lives? Supporting craftspeople is one way; another 222 BAL HARBOUR IMAGE COURTESY COUNTERPOINT PRESS

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