Mimosa Cattail Cuff

Last January, I was working on jewelry inspired by plants native to Louisiana. I amassed a small pile of half-finished pieces when renovations gutted my workspace. I boxed up my desk and moved back to my dining room table (back to where MIMOSA started). 

Somewhere in the packing, I forgot about those plant-inspired pieces, and they slipped my mind for other projects.

They lived in the bottom of some box and the back of my mind till late summer when I fell into a rabbit hole of nature-focused reading. Not random for a former landscape architect. ;) I don’t design outdoor spaces for work anymore, but my experience in and understanding of them continues to be essential in my life (and work). 

Native plants have always fascinated me, partly due to my landscape work and an endless curiosity about the living world outside my door.

In my summer readings, I came across a mix of indigenous species. The writings went beyond their names and physical attributes and dug deep into their history and how these species are essential to a thriving ecosystem.

Most intriguing was the cattail. It's a plant you know if you live in south Louisiana, a plant that little did I know has been sustaining humans for thousands of years.

I learned that you could make pancakes from their pollen, their shoots are edible and taste something like cucumber, you can weave baskets from their leaves, and so much more.

After that mid-summer deep dive on cattails, I remembered that I’d started carving them on a whim half a year before, with no rhyme or reason, no bolt of inspiration, just a symbol of home that lived nestled among many others in my mind. 

I dug through boxes till I found that half-carved creation, determined to finish it and help tell the cattail story.

I feel like much of my work is sifting through our surroundings to pull out the ubiquitous, the taken-for-granted, the most common ingredients to our Louisiana landscape. To lean in and let them whisper to me their secrets to be shared. To capture their essence in a wearable way that allows us all to carry close these totems of home.

This piece is a thank you to the cattail, reminding us we all have a purposeful place in this world where our gifts are uniquely necessary and meant for generosity.