About Us

Underwater Weaving Studio

We are an American Basket Atelier rooted in elevated craftsmanship. Specializing in heirloom-quality rattan baskets for beauty and utility today, each handmade design is woven in Maine and Brooklyn by Erin and Peggy Pollard and a small team dedicated to the timeless preservation of ancient craft. 

The name itself is layered: rooted in the literal process of soaking weaving materials to make them supple, while also nodding to a phrase historically used to undermine vocational learning and domestic labor. By embracing “underwater basket weaving,” the studio turns what was once a punchline into a statement—one that centers softness, beauty, and slowness as sources of power.

Every basket shaped in the studio is more than an object—it is a vessel of intention. The work draws on Maine’s Wabanaki and Shaker legacy, the founder’s experience in fashion publishing, dance, and design, and a profound connection to the natural world. These influences coalesce into timeless forms that feel grounded yet lyrical, as helpful as they are poetic.

Underwater Weaving Studio doesn’t just exist in the basket revival—it’s pushing its edges. With partnerships spanning small farms to fashion houses and installations that blur the line between art and utility, the studio quietly leads a cultural movement that honors the handmade, the inherited, and the overlooked.

We don't see baskets as a trend, but rather a return.

Underwater Weaving Baskets are available at Moda Operandi, Over The Moon, The Expert, Slow Roads, Vestige, MADOO, and a selection of independent shops nationwide.

Erin Pollard was raised in Maine, where the air smelled of soil, and the values ran deep—work with your hands, learn a craft, take pride in what you do, and make. It was a childhood shaped by the quiet teachings of labor, lineage, and care. The click-clack of rattan was the background melody as her mother Peggy became a skilled weaver, teacher, and maker for LL Bean. Family and community were central to life in a small town. Both parents worked to expand the family diner, eventually becoming a 500-seat institution known for classic Maine tropes like Clam Cakes and Blueberry Pie - the boon of Gray. Baskets were alive at home, as people gathered in the basement for workshops and craft sales. Woven containers were generously offered to friends and extended family for many years. But as time passed, the conveniences of “progress” pushed making out. LL Bean moved production overseas, and Peggy stopped teaching when barn weddings became popular with out-of-towners. The quieter rhythms of rattan were replaced with the ring of the car phone and that strange sound AOL dial-up made.

Erin built a publishing and brand marketing career, working with Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Goop. But from the first basket, weaving was more than a craft. It became a language that connected her to her mother and to the long and generous lineage of makers whose knowledge shaped a tradition, an art, a trade—especially the Wabanaki and Shaker communities of the Northeast, whose practices echo through every strand.