Olivia Perillo
Melissa Darden is one of six remaining Chitimacha basket weavers still producing the tribe's revered art objects.
“You have the fingers for it,” a friend told Melissa Darden many years ago. It was an observation that set the Chitimacha Tribal Council’s first woman chairperson on a journey to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps, to master the rare and laborious art of Chitimacha basket-weaving. Darden learned by dedicating hours to watching her grandmother, months to practicing each careful step, and years to developing her own artistic practice. Now, she is one of six remaining individuals still practicing her ancestors’ precious craft, and carrying it into the next generation.
In our second annual “Analog Issue,” we look to the brilliance of the human hand, its power to carry cultures, to connect us to our past, to create something beautiful.
In “Forgotten Wisdoms,” Stevie Mizzi nurtures a self-sustaining world in her backyard, relearning skills lost to the industrial age. Two historic houses of worship are turned towards each other in Ponchatoula, opening their doors as a home for creative expression for the entire community. We meet the craft brewers of Baton Rouge, and remember the golden age of high school boxing in Louisiana. And in our Escapes section, we head out into the Delta—where the real-world impact of coastal restoration efforts becomes a little less abstract, a little more tangible.
