1) How did you find Ericka?
The epic Annakim Violet, who I am excited to hang out with since she recently moved to NYC.

2) What's the first thing you remember from your shoot with Ericka?
Ericka's dreamy memory of growing up on her grandfather's vast and tropical coffee plantation in Guatemala (at the bottom of a volcano), where they drink "real" coffee that does not keep you up all night. Also memorable and enviable were her stories of the blackness at night without street lights where fireflies look like stars on the ground and ghosts appear:)

3) What did Ericka most inspire in you?
To get myself to a place like Ericka's Guatemalan rainforest as soon as possible. Of it, she says, "I sit for hours on top of the highest of the Mayan pyramids and look down upon our beautiful and green paradise so close to the blue sky that reflect over each other like a mirror. I feel holy and majestic up there. I can hear the birds, jaguars and monkeys make invisible drops of sounds that I love to embrace with gratitude and peace. It has become the place where I can finally feel earth as one."

4) What personal quality/character did Ericka make you admire or aspire to have?
Her humble perspective (especially in this narcissistic social media world) on how small and interconnected we are in the universe, an outlook that was handed down to her by her grandfather. I love how Ericka has taken the values of her her indigenous country and applied it to her life in LA, where she has organized successful protests over things like the tearing down of historical landmark buildings.

5) What is your favorite thing about Ericka's style?
Her wild and crazy curly mane of hair, and also how completely untrendy but stylish she is, from her hand embroidered indigenous pieces to her 1950's aqua silk dress, which she wears to enhance her mood for the Bossa Nova music of her band, Sister Rogers.

6) What was the most covetable item in Ericka's wardrobe?
Her hand embroidered blouse that took three months to be made.

7) What was your favorite thing Ericka said during the interview?
"One of the things my grandfather taught me was that no matter what happens you always have to do things with a humble heart and nurture the earth. Because when you zoom out from where ever you are and look at the entire planet as a whole, you don't see one place or person, you see the whole planet as one being, one planet."
I also love her story of trying to bring shoes to poor kids in Gautemala and how they didn't want them. She feels that oftentimes, the people there seem happier than those in the US who have hundreds of pairs shoes.
And how she collects clothes instead of buying them because it reminds her of how she feels.

8) What did Ericka turn you onto culturally?
Books: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, Messages From Water by Dr. Masaru Emoto and The Giver by Lois Lowry
Songs: I Cover The Waterfront (Billie holiday), Essa Moça Tá diferente ( Chico Buarque), Turn Me On (Nina Simone), Shine (Django Rainhart) and Corcovado (Astrud Gilberto)
Movies: Black Orpheus, Blue Hawaii, Down with Love and "It."

Questions answered by Elisa Goodkind, Co-Founder & Editor in Chief.