Wood, Words, Pearls, and Clay: Open Studio & Artist Talk

​From August-October 2026, this year’s Chores artisans invite us into their studios to preview early prototypes, practice craft skills, and actively participate in the refinement of this year’s Chores collection: The Girl and The Goose.

​During the 3rd and final installment of our Open Studio series, join four Chores artisans working in very different mediums — for an exclusive preview of the pieces they’ve created for this year’s collection, as well as a panel discussion centered on their unique crafts and material perspectives:

​WOOD — Alison Cheng, woodworker and founder of Blue Pomelo Studio
WORDS — Aishvarya Arora, poet
PEARLS — Nicki Cherry, sculptor
CLAY — Anna Letson, ceramicist

​What a rare and special thing it is to see all these practices in dialogue under one collection, and one studio roof. Join us in conversation with Alison, Aishvarya, Nicki, and Anna to explore what it means to transform these precious materials, and to do it alongside one another.

​Note: Tickets include admission, light refreshments, and an entry into our upcoming Collection Launch Celebration Raffle.

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​Alison Cheng (she/her) is the founder of Blue Pomelo Studio, an interior design and custom furniture practice based in Brooklyn. The studio is shaped by a life lived across Hong Kong, London, Cambodia, and New York. Trained as an architect, Alison creates spaces and pieces that feel thoughtful, personal, and quietly transformative — designed to support the rituals, habits, and flow of everyday life.

​Aishvarya Arora (they/them) is a poet, teaching artist, and cultural organizer from Queens, NY. They’re the author of Mr. Time (Gold Line Press, forthcoming 2027), which has been described by poet Diannely Antigua as "[cracking] open language to make room for what doesn’t conform, what flickers and survives" in excavations of grief and gender, elegy and desire. Their poems appears in Poetry Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, Poetry Northwest, The Brooklyn Rail, and Foglifter, among other publications. Currently, they live in Philadelphia and create poetry ephemera through their micro-press, Lavender Codex.

​Nicki Cherry (she/they) creates sculptures that are active sites of growth and decay, grappling with the psychological and physiological turbulence we experience within ourselves. Tulips bloom from stretching limbs, scents waft from burning candles, and sound seeps into ruptured skin. Punctuating life-sized figures made of pigmented concrete and ceramic with organic and inorganic materials ranging from blister pearls to medical ephemera, Cherry’s work treats the body as a cipher for our inner vulnerabilities. After initially studying particle physics, Cherry received their BA from the University of Chicago in 2014 and their MFA from Yale School of Art in 2019. Their work has been presented internationally at MAMA Projects, The Bronx Museum, NARS Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts. They will present a solo exhibition at Capsule Shanghai opening this November.

​Anna Letson (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and maker bouncing around Brooklyn, New York. Primarily a photographer, she specializes in portraits and brand imagery that captures people and things in their truest light. When she’s not behind the lens, she’s in the ceramic studio covered in clay, dreaming up a new hands-on project, or in the kitchen scheming up a fish dish or sweet treat (anyone got some edible flowers?). She’s big on light — how it bounces, glows, and shines through — and on small joys, like basking in the sun or smelling the flowers. You should ask her to make a dove sound.