Dusty Holmes is always on the lookout for good pine needles. “I joke that my vehicle stops for pine trees,” says the Naples artist.

She has a good reason: Holmes is a pine-needle basket weaver. It’s an unique skill that finds her more or less constantly searching the ground for longleaf Florida pine needles, in order to keep up with the steady demand for her craft. She sells mainly at Naples ArtCrafters shows, but her work has received some national acclaim, including a display at The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.

The retired nurse and Army veteran arrived in Florida from New Mexico in 2007. She was a potter and started a studio in Bonita Springs. After a career in a rather stressful job, she found her new pursuit peaceful. “I wanted to start using the other side of my brain,” she says. “It was a nice relief from what I was doing.”

One day, a 92-year-old basket maker named Georgia Hortin came into her studio and struck up a conversation about pine-needle weaving and how it might complement some of her clay-molded pieces. Holmes wasn’t familiar with the artform, but the two quickly bonded over it. They met weekly to weave; Holmes quickly picked up on the process. (Hortin continued weaving up until she passed away at 99, Holmes said.)

Holmes has now spent about a dozen years weaving, often incorporating clay pottery into her pieces. The process can be labor-intensive: After picking up her supply of needles, she boils them, then starts weaving them together while wet. One basket may take three days to complete. At the ArtCrafters monthly shows in season, she can sell upward of 30-40 baskets.

“I can only make them so fast,” she says with a laugh. “I work all summer long to build up my inventory.”