Writings: Exploring Love, Land, & Handmade Life

                                     ✧ A Threshold of Light and Dark “Balance isn’t about perfect symmetry. It’s about awareness.” The Fall Equinox marks a moment of equilibrium—when daylight and darkness meet as equals. It’s the hinge...

The bucket hat is a circle in motion—like time, always returning, always evolving.It holds memory in its shape. A soft geometry of style that shifts with you. You’ve seen them everywhere. On runways. On sidewalks. In fields. At festivals.But before all that, the humble bucket hat began its journey somewhere...

A name that means bee. A bonnet that became a message. “I’d like a high-fashion bee bonnet costume to wear for an event to create awareness about the importance of bees.” That was the seed. A request from my friend Monica Miller of Skye Botanicals—Master Herbalist, perfumer, and beekeeper. She...

Before a garment becomes form, it begins as texture, shape, history. In this piece, I explore how deadstock fabric—often overlooked or cast aside—becomes the source material for both capsule collections and underwater costume. Two worlds. One practice. A thread carried between surface and depth. This story is woven in both...

A surreal dive into Florida’s dying freshwater springs—through the lens of performance, costume, and collaboration. Art as ecological witness. In my previous story, The Shape of Water, I showcased some of the most incredible images I’ve been part of creating—some of which were captured in the pristine, crystal-clear waters of...

“I have mixed-toned denim—but you have to buy the whole bale. A thousand pounds.”  That was the unexpected reply from Tony, my raghouse supplier. Normally, he sourced soft castoffs—cashmere for my appliqué sweaters. But this time, I needed something sturdier: denim. And not just any denim. I needed variety—mixed tones...

One of Earth’s four sacred elements, water is so vital that without it, life would vanish. But water doesn’t just sustain life—it shapes it. As a girl from the land of 10,000 lakes, I fell in love with water early. I took swimming lessons in still-frigid spring lakes, went canoe...

“Let me slip into something more comfortable” The flirtatious, perhaps seductive quote may be first attributed to the sultry actress Mae West slipping into a lingerie-version slipdress in the 30’s when slips were worn as lingerie, but beyond romance, the allure of the slipdress is timeless. This story is woven...

Bustiers are unapologetically feminine. They shape the body—nipping the waist, lifting the bust, inviting upright posture. It’s nearly impossible to slouch in a bustier. And that’s part of the point: they demand presence. This story is woven in both word and image. Visual collaborators featured in the full Substack story...

Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane? “It’s not about how well you fall, but how well you land.” That’s what paratroopers say. The act of free-falling becomes a symbol—for risk, resilience, and grace. There’s something beautifully contradictory about parachute fabric. Light as air, yet designed to carry a...