Regina Connell, Founder, Editor in Chief
A San Francisco Bay Area-based writer, curator and creative consultant specializing in design and contemporary craft, Regina Connell is the founder and Editor in Chief of Handful of Salt.
Hailing from a family of writers, fine artists and artisans, Regina’s had a lifelong passion for functional and decorative art, honed by years spent living in Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, and Paris. Throughout her career in design/creative strategy, digital media, and writing, Regina’s focused on spotting trends and breaking down barriers between traditionally siloed disciplines. And that’s exactly what she wants to do for the world of contemporary craft. Want to see the Ten Things that define Regina? Click here.
Nicole Bemboom
Nicole is a young woman nearly lost in a sea of interests and obsessions. With a background in writing, design and craft she has found it hard to find a place where all these loves are allowed to co-exist. Luckily, Handful of Salt created a space called DesignCraft, which celebrates this intersection. As a production assistant, she is able to use her copy editing skills and general wordy passion from her BA in Literature from UC Santa Cruz, as well as her obsessive layout skills honed during her happily incomplete MFA from Academy of Art in Industrial Design. Anyone who has seen her pick out a trash can knows her level of attention to, and obsession with, the objects and spaces around us. As the Office Superstar at Bolt | Peters, a company that does UX Research, she is increasingly interested in this interaction between people and objects, and wonders how this can also intersect with craft, design and art.
Emily Eisenhart
Emily is a designer with a deep appreciation for global cultures and aesthetics. Her travels around the world, as well as her academic background in Cultural Anthropology, have left her forever fascinated by the people, environments, and objects around her. As a design thinker, she resonates strongly with the idea that design is more than what is on the surface; it’s about the relationship between the product, the person, and the ecosystem in which it operates, and about the value – and values – that are created in the process. She joined the Handful of Salt team in its early days as a photographer, graphic designer, and part-time blogger. Since then, she landed a job at IDEO as a Project Coordinator, where she works closely with teams to carry out complex design projects. She’s still an adamant supporter of everything DesignCraft and remains closely tied to the larger Handful of Salt family. Want to see which Ten Things define Emily? Click here.
Anne Stericker
LA-based Anne tracks trends and happenings in down new sources for us, interviews DesignCrafters and takes delicious photos. She also runs a travel planning and personal concierge service called Live.Travel.Well. which helps busy people create more time to do the things they really love. Anne grew up in the Midwest before moving to Colorado to attend the University of Colorado, Boulder. After graduating with a B.S. in Journalism, Anne moved to Los Angeles where she worked in PR. Several years later, Anne decided to move to the East Coast and chose Boston, where she held management positions at Putnam Investments and Thomson Financial before opening up her travel planning and personal concierge business. She’s now back in LA, running Live. Travel. Well. and bringing her charm, intuition, smarts, creative problem-solving, and investigative skills to clients there (lucky them.) Anne’s interests and hobbies include cooking and baking, trying new restaurants, travel, health, fitness, nutrition, fashion, home decor, movies, art and taking self-guided food safaris to explore a city’s culinary delights. Interested in more? See Anne’s Ten.
Pete Harris
Pete is Handful of Salt’s Action Hero and Resident London Guru. He seeks out the best in spontaneous events, design, craft and art in some of the more colourful areas of the capital. Currently studying Graphic Design and taking part in all sorts of flashmob type design challenges, he was, in a previous life, a member of a LeMans Motor racing team, a reporter for land speed record attempts at Bonneville and an image projectionist (VJ) for raves and other music events in the 1990’s. Didn’t we say he was our action hero?
Kathryn Clark
Kathryn worked as an architectural and urban designer for seven years before happily becoming a full-time artist in 2005. A traditional painter and photographer for twenty years, her studio slowly became full of remnants of yarn, wire and stacks of linen and burlap. She put the paintbrushes away, started sewing and hasn’t looked back. She also writes a blog to inspire and inform other artists who work in the unique genre called Articraft after becoming annoyed at the poor representation of craft artists in the fine art world. Her latest project is spending weekends learning small scale farming while renovating a mid-century modern cottage in the wine country.
Coralie Langston Jones
Coralie has devoted her career to a lifelong passion for design and architecture, in London, Los Angeles and now the Bay Area. She has promoted the work of architects, and a broad range of designers from a wide range of disciplines, including graphic and industrial design to jewelry and fashion design. She has helped publicize the work of some of the industry’s most influential creative individuals and companies including Heath Ceramics, Marmol Radziner, Ammunition, Kohler Co, and jewelry designer Federico de Vera. Her appreciation for materials, handcrafting techniques and proportion was honed while growing up in Malaysia and Hong Kong. With a deep-rooted culture supporting the art of handmade objects, this part of the world has long-fascinated Coralie and how the mark of the hand can bring a human dimension to a space, object, or article of clothing.She holds a BA Honors degree in human geography from the University of Reading, England, and a postgraduate diploma in marketing from Kingston University, England. Born in Malaysia, educated in England, Coralie now lives with her family in the Bay Area, California.
Linda Ricci
A Brooklyn-based writer, thinker, and artist, Contributing Editor Linda covers happenings in New York, and cutting edge material practices for Handful of Salt. A former digital strategist and trend maven, globe-trotting Linda has a degree in Mass Communications from Boston University and a Masters from RSM Erasmus Univeriteit in Rotterdam.
Meghan Urback
As both a maker and writer, Meghan has a deep interest in the DesignCraft world. Passionate about craft traditions and promoting the continuing importance of handwork, she is excited to be part of a community who shares similar values. In an effort to further explore craft practices and to find their place in the design and academic arts worlds, she completed a Masters in Fine Arts degree from California College of the Arts. Her written thesis focused on precisely the DesignCraft intersection that Handful of Salt occupies. She has subsequently opened her own design studio and filled her garage with wool and industrial felt. Adept at and interested in many textile skills, she is currently obsessed with felting.
Natalie Powell
Natalie Powell joined the Handful of Salt team as a writer and editor in 2012. She holds a B.A. (cum laude) in History and will begin a Master of Public Policy program in 2013. Natalie enjoys employing her writing to bring attention to talented individuals, such as those profiled by Handful of Salt, and worthy causes: she has worked for numerous arts organizations and has been active in the non-profit sector for several years. Natalie’s areas of journalistic interest include cultural policy, the arts, education policy, and international affairs.
Lee Havlicek
Lee is Handful of Salt’s Digital Editor and Food Editor. She is a New York-based writer, life-long cook and baker, photographer, ferris wheel rider, hyperbolist, nostalgist, and general food enthusiast. Born in New York, Lee grew up in Washington, DC, but moved back to Mahattan to attend Barnard College at Columbia University. She has been shuffling between the two cities ever since. Following graduation from Barnard with a BA in American Studies in 2009, Lee has worked in everything from from cupcakes and publishing to Shakespeare and film. Currently, she is putting together her upcoming cooking blog, Lee and Lou (www.LeeandLouCook.com), with the woman who first gave her a love of food and photography: her mother, Louise (owner of New York food haven Greenley & Sferrazza in the 1980s). In addition to Handful of Salt, Lee has written for Gilt Taste, Williams-Sonoma’s The Blender, and Slate Magazine. Follow her on Twitter (@LeeHavlicek) to keep up with her writing and other goings-on.
Cara Kagan
Cara Kagan is a freelance beauty and lifestyles writer who has contributed to many national women’s magazines, including Self, Shape, Fitness, Glamour, Real Simple, Town & Country and Harper’s Bazaar. She also has served as a consultant and writer to beauty companies such as Estee Lauder, Bobbi Brown, Jo Malone, La Mer, Dior and Clinique. Cara co-authored Planning Your Future Face (Viking/Penguin) with New York City dermatologist Dr. Dennis Gross and now maintains a monthly health, beauty and fashion blog, Notorious NYCK at CaraKagan.com.
Caitlin Cooreman
Caitlin is, perhaps, best described as an artist. She currently resides in Minneapolis, but her insatiable curiosity has lead her explore and create in places such as San Francisco and Madrid. Her passion for painting and photography flourished during her undergrad at the College of Saint Benedict, where she graduated with a B.A. in Spanish and Fine Art. Caitlin is inspired by people and objects, and the relationship between the two – hoping to present a visual story through her images. Regardless of the city, Caitlin is the ideal accomplice for any adventure. She’ll make it her mission to find the best local coffee haunt, sending you on a caffeinated journey through all things new. See the world through Caitlin’s eyes here: lemonshoe.tumblr.com
Danielle Sabalvaro
A true California girl, Danielle is a Bay-Area native currently attending college ocean-side at UC Santa Barbara. Having grown up with an architect for a father, often drawing and playing with Styrofoam models in his office, Danielle caught the design bug at an early age. When she entered college, she immediately sought out working with the kind of people she had come to understand and enjoy being around—architects and designers. She is endlessly excited by the creative problem solving involved in design, by the painstaking details, and by the use of imagination and logic together. Danielle is an editorial intern for Handful of Salt, assisting the Digital Editor and managing social media campaigns. In June 2013, she will receive a Bachelor’s in Communication with a Minor in Professional Writing in Multimedia Communication.