As a marine scientist and ocean conservationist living in La Jolla,
California, I never set out to create art. I simply wanted to preserve
the beauty I encountered along the shoreline. I’ve always been
drawn to the things others walk past—the tiny, the intricate,
and the often overlooked.
Every piece starts with a walk to the beach. I love tide pooling, looking for nudibranchs and then walking along the shores looking for drift seaweed.
Collected exclusively from naturally washed ashore drift seaweed—never harvested from the ocean—to help protect marine ecosystems.
The process begins after collection. Each piece of drift seaweed is meticulously curated, with hours spent removing tiny grains of sand, shell fragments, and other natural debris by hand. Then comes the design process. Every delicate branch is carefully arranged and rearranged, one by one, until the composition feels complete.
After hours of arranging each tiny branch, the design is pressed and left undisturbed for several weeks. It's one of the hardest parts of the process—waiting to see if the composition I envisioned survives the journey.
My hope is that every piece encourages others to notice the beauty in the little things and to feel a deeper connection to the ocean. To help protect the waters that inspire my work, 1% of every sale is donated to ocean conservation
