The first Ocean Botanical Wings
These were the first wings I ever made.
And I had no idea, when I started them, that I was beginning again too.
It had been almost three years since life forced me to leave behind the community garden I had created and the pressed flower art I had poured my heart and soul into for years. I left that world behind and returned to my hometown.
For a long time afterward, I felt lost.
I didn’t know if I would ever find another project I could love that deeply. The kind of work that makes you wake up excited because you cannot wait to get back to it. The kind of passion that takes over your tables, your notebooks, your weekends, your conversations, your whole way of looking at the world. The kind of creative obsession you willingly build your life around.
I knew what it felt like to have that once.
I didn’t know if I would ever have it again.
And then, almost by accident, it happened.
There was no master plan. I wasn’t trying to invent a collection or find my next great body of work. I was experimenting with cyanotype, playing with silk, spending time near the ocean, following whatever caught my attention.
And then there was giant kelp.
Macrocystis pyrifera.
Long blades stretched from wandering stems. Air-filled floats lifted them toward the surface. Everything curved, reached, drifted, and responded to water.
It already seemed to contain movement before I ever put it onto silk.
I kept looking at it and thinking about the body. Thinking about a poem I had written 20 years ago.
What would happen if something that had spent its whole life moving with the ocean could move with a woman instead?
I didn’t know yet what these wings would become.
Giant kelp begins anchored to the ocean floor and grows upward toward sunlight. In California waters it can form immense underwater forests, its blades reaching through the water column while currents continually bend and reshape its body.
It grows without becoming rigid.
Reaches while moving.
Responds to the world around it and keeps reaching for light.
I think that was something I needed to see.
Because becoming does not always arrive as a plan.
Sometimes it begins as a pull or curiosity,
new material in your hands.
An idea you keep returning to.
A feeling in your body that says: try this.
So I took the kelp home.
I washed away the sand and salt, rehydrated the blades, and began arranging them across habotai silk. There was no established process yet. No collection. No previous pair to copy. I was learning by touching it, turning a blade, following a stem, watching one curve answer another.
I let the kelp show me how it wanted to occupy the silk.
Then I carried everything into the California sun.
The kelp rested directly against the fabric. Sunlight moved around every blade, stem, float, edge, and opening.
And the organism made its own image.
That is one of the things I love most about cyanotype. I do not have to redraw the natural world to preserve it. The actual body of the organism participates in making the image.
Water shaped the kelp.
The kelp shaped the composition.
Sunlight shaped the image.
Then I lifted the botanical body away and saw what remained.
An imprint.
A record of contact.
A new form.
Something that had spent its life moving through the Pacific was suddenly held inside silk.
And then I picked up the wings.
Air entered them.
The fabric opened.
The long kelp blades that had spent their lives reaching through water began sweeping through another element entirely.
They gathered the wind.
For the first time, I watched an underwater forest move through air.
And somewhere in that moment, something in me moved too.
I wanted to make another pair.
I wanted to know more about the kelp.
I wanted to learn their names.
I wanted to find new specimens, experiment with new silks, understand the chemistry better, paint into the prints, watch them move, photograph them, film them, dance with them.
I wanted to wake up and work on it again the next morning.
And the next.
And the next.
That feeling I thought I might never find again had returned before I even realized what was happening.
A project had found me.
That is why I call these wings Becoming.
These wings became something while I was becoming something too.
Ocean became image. Image became silk. Silk became movement. Curiosity became practice. Practice became devotion. An experiment became the beginning of an entire body of work.
Ocean → shore → sun → silk → body → movement → ocean.
I could never have planned that sequence from the beginning.
I had to enter it.
Giant kelp knows something about that kind of becoming.
It reaches toward light while remaining in motion. It stretches without controlling the current. It lets water pass through it. It bends, responds, grows, rises.
It does not need to know the shape the ocean will ask it to make tomorrow.
It keeps becoming anyway.
And that is what I hope these wings give to the woman who wears them.
I hope they remind you that you are allowed to begin before you know where the beginning will lead.
You are allowed to follow fascination.
You are allowed to become completely absorbed in something you love.
You are allowed to discover another passion after believing you had already known the great passion of your life.
You are allowed to change shape.
You are allowed to surprise yourself.
You are allowed to wake up one morning and discover that something has begun growing inside your life again.
Stretch.
Reach.
Flow.
Feel with the waters.
Follow what makes you curious.
Follow what makes your hands want to create.
Follow what makes your body want to move.
Follow what makes you lose track of time.
Follow what makes you wake up wanting to begin again.
Open your arms and gather the wind.
Let the silk answer your movement.
Reach, and watch the kelp reach with you.
Turn, and watch an underwater forest sweep through the air.
Let the elements participate.
Let movement teach you what thinking alone cannot.
Use these wings to praise the unfinishedness of being alive.
Praise the life you presently find yourself in.
Praise what is already growing there.
Praise the passions you have known, because they became part of you.
Praise the passions you have yet to discover.
Praise every beginning whose importance you cannot possibly understand while you are standing inside it.
You are an artist of life.
Becoming is part of your medium.
Your attention shapes your life. Your curiosity shapes it. Your movement shapes it. Your choices shape it. What you love shapes it.
You do not need to see the finished composition in order to begin.
So stretch farther.
Reach toward the light.
Flow with the waters.
Gather the wind.
Let yourself become fascinated.
Let yourself become devoted.
Let yourself create beyond what you already know how to make.
Let yourself fall in love with your own life again.
These were the first Ocean Botanical Wings I ever made.
When I laid that giant kelp across the silk, I thought I was experimenting with a new way of making art.
I had no idea I was making the beginning of something that would consume my imagination, reconnect me to the natural world, return me to movement, and give me something I wanted to wake up for again.
I thought I was making wings.
They were teaching me how to grow new ones.
Perhaps that is the prayer inside Becoming:
You cannot always know which experiment will change your life.
You cannot always recognize a beginning while you are inside it.
Sometimes you simply notice that something is calling your attention.
So follow it.
Reach.
Gather the wind.
See what grows.
Become.
___________
These magical oceanic silk angel wings are handmade for dance, flow arts, worship, ritual, play, photography, performance and becoming your most luminous ocean self.
Each pair is created in San Diego, California using a sun print process and fresh kelp or other sea botanicals ethically harvested, composited then composted from the shores of the Pacific. I make every piece by hand with sunlight, seawater, silk, and naturally washed-ashore kelp. No two prints will ever be exactly alike.
Because I print with real fresh kelp, every order begins with a custom beach trip. Seaweed decomposes quickly, so I harvest it fresh and look for beautiful, mostly intact fronds during high tide. Then I bring it home, prepare the silk, create the exposure, rinse and process the piece, clean up the studio, and carefully pack it for its journey to you.
Each set takes roughly a day and a half of hands-on work, plus travel time, materials, cleanup, packaging, and the many small business costs behind making art sustainably. Your purchase supports an independent artist making wearable ocean magic one piece at a time.
This is a wet sun print artwork, so you may see organic marks, tonal variation, soft edges, water textures, and other beautiful creative imperfections. These are not flaws. They are part of the handmade process and the reason every silk feels alive and unique.
Please treat your silk wings with care. Keep them away from dusty or dirty environments, rough surfaces, and anything that may snag or stain the fabric.
If they get dirty wash only with non alkaline silk soap. Not detergent. Heritage is a good brand. The color will change if washed with alkaline. If the color begins to change, rinse in a solution of water and vinegar to bring back the intensity of the blue.
Printed in the USA. Currently shipped within the USA only.
If you would like, you may leave a wish, prayer, blessing, intention, or a little good juju in your order notes. I will hold it in my heart while I make your piece, in whatever way feels appropriate and comfortable to you.
Dance with them. Pray with them. Play with them. Let the ocean move through you.
_____________
SPECS
These wings are lightly used by me because I created a lot of the images and videos on this website with these wings.
Lightweight Silk Wings
These silk wings are designed to feel airy, fluid, and responsive in motion. The lightweight fabric creates a wide, dramatic shape for dance, flow arts, ritual, worship, photography, and performance without feeling heavy in your hands.
Each set weighs approximately 60 g / 2.1 oz.
-Full wingspan: 180 cm / 70 in
-Wing length: 90 cm / 35 in
The silk is printed by hand with my original kelp cyanotype process, so the blue-and-white design shifts beautifully as the fabric moves through light.
Flexible, Travel-Friendly Rods
Each set comes with lightweight fiberglass rods that are strong, flexible, and easy to carry. The rods detach for packing and travel, then assemble quickly when you are ready to dance.
Thoughtful Construction
The silk sleeves that hold the rods are reinforced in the areas that receive the most movement and pressure. Strong stitching and finished edges help the wings hold up through regular use while reducing fraying.
Because every pair is individually printed with real kelp and sunlight, variations in print placement, water texture, blue tone, and organic markings are part of the one-of-a-kind artwork.
Care Instructions
Gently steam before use to release wrinkles and help the silk move freely.
Only wash with detergent free silk laundry soap. Handwash. Little leftovers of detergent in washing machine can brown cyanotype print. Keep away from alkaline sprays etc. Keep the wings away from water, humidity, rain, wet sand, dusty environments, and damp storage. Store them completely dry in a protective bag between uses.
These are delicate silk artworks made for movement. Handle them with care, and they will remain beautiful for many dances.
The first Ocean Botanical Wings
These were the first wings I ever made.
And I had no idea, when I started them, that I was beginning again too.
It had been almost three years since life forced me to leave behind the community garden I had created and the pressed flower art I had poured my heart and soul into for years. I left that world behind and returned to my hometown.
For a long time afterward, I felt lost.
I didn’t know if I would ever find another project I could love that deeply. The kind of work that makes you wake up excited because you cannot wait to get back to it. The kind of passion that takes over your tables, your notebooks, your weekends, your conversations, your whole way of looking at the world. The kind of creative obsession you willingly build your life around.
I knew what it felt like to have that once.
I didn’t know if I would ever have it again.
And then, almost by accident, it happened.
There was no master plan. I wasn’t trying to invent a collection or find my next great body of work. I was experimenting with cyanotype, playing with silk, spending time near the ocean, following whatever caught my attention.
And then there was giant kelp.
Macrocystis pyrifera.
Long blades stretched from wandering stems. Air-filled floats lifted them toward the surface. Everything curved, reached, drifted, and responded to water.
It already seemed to contain movement before I ever put it onto silk.
I kept looking at it and thinking about the body. Thinking about a poem I had written 20 years ago.
What would happen if something that had spent its whole life moving with the ocean could move with a woman instead?
I didn’t know yet what these wings would become.
Giant kelp begins anchored to the ocean floor and grows upward toward sunlight. In California waters it can form immense underwater forests, its blades reaching through the water column while currents continually bend and reshape its body.
It grows without becoming rigid.
Reaches while moving.
Responds to the world around it and keeps reaching for light.
I think that was something I needed to see.
Because becoming does not always arrive as a plan.
Sometimes it begins as a pull or curiosity,
new material in your hands.
An idea you keep returning to.
A feeling in your body that says: try this.
So I took the kelp home.
I washed away the sand and salt, rehydrated the blades, and began arranging them across habotai silk. There was no established process yet. No collection. No previous pair to copy. I was learning by touching it, turning a blade, following a stem, watching one curve answer another.
I let the kelp show me how it wanted to occupy the silk.
Then I carried everything into the California sun.
The kelp rested directly against the fabric. Sunlight moved around every blade, stem, float, edge, and opening.
And the organism made its own image.
That is one of the things I love most about cyanotype. I do not have to redraw the natural world to preserve it. The actual body of the organism participates in making the image.
Water shaped the kelp.
The kelp shaped the composition.
Sunlight shaped the image.
Then I lifted the botanical body away and saw what remained.
An imprint.
A record of contact.
A new form.
Something that had spent its life moving through the Pacific was suddenly held inside silk.
And then I picked up the wings.
Air entered them.
The fabric opened.
The long kelp blades that had spent their lives reaching through water began sweeping through another element entirely.
They gathered the wind.
For the first time, I watched an underwater forest move through air.
And somewhere in that moment, something in me moved too.
I wanted to make another pair.
I wanted to know more about the kelp.
I wanted to learn their names.
I wanted to find new specimens, experiment with new silks, understand the chemistry better, paint into the prints, watch them move, photograph them, film them, dance with them.
I wanted to wake up and work on it again the next morning.
And the next.
And the next.
That feeling I thought I might never find again had returned before I even realized what was happening.
A project had found me.
That is why I call these wings Becoming.
These wings became something while I was becoming something too.
Ocean became image. Image became silk. Silk became movement. Curiosity became practice. Practice became devotion. An experiment became the beginning of an entire body of work.
Ocean → shore → sun → silk → body → movement → ocean.
I could never have planned that sequence from the beginning.
I had to enter it.
Giant kelp knows something about that kind of becoming.
It reaches toward light while remaining in motion. It stretches without controlling the current. It lets water pass through it. It bends, responds, grows, rises.
It does not need to know the shape the ocean will ask it to make tomorrow.
It keeps becoming anyway.
And that is what I hope these wings give to the woman who wears them.
I hope they remind you that you are allowed to begin before you know where the beginning will lead.
You are allowed to follow fascination.
You are allowed to become completely absorbed in something you love.
You are allowed to discover another passion after believing you had already known the great passion of your life.
You are allowed to change shape.
You are allowed to surprise yourself.
You are allowed to wake up one morning and discover that something has begun growing inside your life again.
Stretch.
Reach.
Flow.
Feel with the waters.
Follow what makes you curious.
Follow what makes your hands want to create.
Follow what makes your body want to move.
Follow what makes you lose track of time.
Follow what makes you wake up wanting to begin again.
Open your arms and gather the wind.
Let the silk answer your movement.
Reach, and watch the kelp reach with you.
Turn, and watch an underwater forest sweep through the air.
Let the elements participate.
Let movement teach you what thinking alone cannot.
Use these wings to praise the unfinishedness of being alive.
Praise the life you presently find yourself in.
Praise what is already growing there.
Praise the passions you have known, because they became part of you.
Praise the passions you have yet to discover.
Praise every beginning whose importance you cannot possibly understand while you are standing inside it.
You are an artist of life.
Becoming is part of your medium.
Your attention shapes your life. Your curiosity shapes it. Your movement shapes it. Your choices shape it. What you love shapes it.
You do not need to see the finished composition in order to begin.
So stretch farther.
Reach toward the light.
Flow with the waters.
Gather the wind.
Let yourself become fascinated.
Let yourself become devoted.
Let yourself create beyond what you already know how to make.
Let yourself fall in love with your own life again.
These were the first Ocean Botanical Wings I ever made.
When I laid that giant kelp across the silk, I thought I was experimenting with a new way of making art.
I had no idea I was making the beginning of something that would consume my imagination, reconnect me to the natural world, return me to movement, and give me something I wanted to wake up for again.
I thought I was making wings.
They were teaching me how to grow new ones.
Perhaps that is the prayer inside Becoming:
You cannot always know which experiment will change your life.
You cannot always recognize a beginning while you are inside it.
Sometimes you simply notice that something is calling your attention.
So follow it.
Reach.
Gather the wind.
See what grows.
Become.
___________
These magical oceanic silk angel wings are handmade for dance, flow arts, worship, ritual, play, photography, performance and becoming your most luminous ocean self.
Each pair is created in San Diego, California using a sun print process and fresh kelp or other sea botanicals ethically harvested, composited then composted from the shores of the Pacific. I make every piece by hand with sunlight, seawater, silk, and naturally washed-ashore kelp. No two prints will ever be exactly alike.
Because I print with real fresh kelp, every order begins with a custom beach trip. Seaweed decomposes quickly, so I harvest it fresh and look for beautiful, mostly intact fronds during high tide. Then I bring it home, prepare the silk, create the exposure, rinse and process the piece, clean up the studio, and carefully pack it for its journey to you.
Each set takes roughly a day and a half of hands-on work, plus travel time, materials, cleanup, packaging, and the many small business costs behind making art sustainably. Your purchase supports an independent artist making wearable ocean magic one piece at a time.
This is a wet sun print artwork, so you may see organic marks, tonal variation, soft edges, water textures, and other beautiful creative imperfections. These are not flaws. They are part of the handmade process and the reason every silk feels alive and unique.
Please treat your silk wings with care. Keep them away from dusty or dirty environments, rough surfaces, and anything that may snag or stain the fabric.
If they get dirty wash only with non alkaline silk soap. Not detergent. Heritage is a good brand. The color will change if washed with alkaline. If the color begins to change, rinse in a solution of water and vinegar to bring back the intensity of the blue.
Printed in the USA. Currently shipped within the USA only.
If you would like, you may leave a wish, prayer, blessing, intention, or a little good juju in your order notes. I will hold it in my heart while I make your piece, in whatever way feels appropriate and comfortable to you.
Dance with them. Pray with them. Play with them. Let the ocean move through you.
_____________
SPECS
These wings are lightly used by me because I created a lot of the images and videos on this website with these wings.
Lightweight Silk Wings
These silk wings are designed to feel airy, fluid, and responsive in motion. The lightweight fabric creates a wide, dramatic shape for dance, flow arts, ritual, worship, photography, and performance without feeling heavy in your hands.
Each set weighs approximately 60 g / 2.1 oz.
-Full wingspan: 180 cm / 70 in
-Wing length: 90 cm / 35 in
The silk is printed by hand with my original kelp cyanotype process, so the blue-and-white design shifts beautifully as the fabric moves through light.
Flexible, Travel-Friendly Rods
Each set comes with lightweight fiberglass rods that are strong, flexible, and easy to carry. The rods detach for packing and travel, then assemble quickly when you are ready to dance.
Thoughtful Construction
The silk sleeves that hold the rods are reinforced in the areas that receive the most movement and pressure. Strong stitching and finished edges help the wings hold up through regular use while reducing fraying.
Because every pair is individually printed with real kelp and sunlight, variations in print placement, water texture, blue tone, and organic markings are part of the one-of-a-kind artwork.
Care Instructions
Gently steam before use to release wrinkles and help the silk move freely.
Only wash with detergent free silk laundry soap. Handwash. Little leftovers of detergent in washing machine can brown cyanotype print. Keep away from alkaline sprays etc. Keep the wings away from water, humidity, rain, wet sand, dusty environments, and damp storage. Store them completely dry in a protective bag between uses.
These are delicate silk artworks made for movement. Handle them with care, and they will remain beautiful for many dances.
