08/21/2026
It's the time of year when I start to think about holiday markets - and making plant art that is "gift-able". This is a shift from the street fair heavy summer months where people aren't buying gifts, they're buying for themselves. So as cool air creeps in I start to shift away from making wearable plant art and shift into gift focused plant art. But there are a few things that never change for me - the art + goods I make are made FROM plants - plant pressed, plant printed, plant dyed - and they are rooted in sustainability.
Everything I make is biodegradable, recyclable or reusable. All of my goods like teas and candles, utilize glass and are reusable. My bags and wallets are made from upcycled sheets/ drapes. My clothes are made using discarded natural fibers destined for a landfill, often having holes/tears/ stains, and I then give them a new, modern life with my creativity, sewing machine and plants.
I make my own mordants and reuse the baths multiple times to reduce water waste. I neutralize dyes before I dump them into my rain gardens for filtration. I turn exhaust baths into inks. This work is deeply personal to me - work where I am able to contribute positively to this planet and to connect to the land, to work with it in a way most of the modern world has long forgotten how to do.
And it makes me think of the things that nature opposes - greed, power, money, capitalism, individualism. And I sit in contemplative thought on how my work can coexist in this framework. Particularly within the context of the holidays, a time of notorious overconsumption and waste.
I have leveled with myself - there's no way to fully escape this. This death grip on MORE. But I can, in my little speck of earth, do the best I can with the mind and heart and hands I've been given. I can create art and gifts without a lens of consumption, but connection. Art that is Intentional. Thoughtful. Rooted to nature. And in a time when consumption filled "hauls" on IG are championed, let these tiny scraps of upcycled plant fiber that most would just toss in the garbage without a second thought, be a piece of the path we create to connect us all back home and to each other.
