LIFE
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Our Velvet Palm and Beaded Palm are back in stock! We’ve restocked a limited amount of yardage, perfect for decorative drapery (I still think about the house in Malibu we just finished with our white beaded palm.. looked insane) We’ve also restocked 60 pillows!
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Before there was bespoke, I would sit on my floor in New York and make collection pieces for the website. Now over the last 10 years each piece is a moment in time of my life since 2014. I’m taking out my video camera again. I’m feeling the need to create a new collection, it feels like it’s been forever since i’ve done that. Make a video, get inspired create something new for myself.
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When I look back at everything that happened this year I still can't quite wrap my head around it. It was an all consuming year. A year that changed everything. A year that burned away all the things in me that needed to be burned away. And somehow at the very same time all that space was being filled with so much new. I felt like I was on a pendulum constantly swinging from one extreme to the other. One moment I was running around New York meeting with interior design firms I used to dream of sitting down with presenting CKD in a way I never had before. Hand painting massive murals in the Hamptons, Martha’s Vineyard and Boca. The collaborations coming to life in 2027 are projects I was sketching and dreaming about 15 years ago. And then there was the other side of it all. The people I surround myself with have changed completely. I'm living alone in Los Angeles so far away from my family building a life that looks nothing like the one I knew before. There have been moments of incredible excitement followed by moments of uncertainty. Feeling like everything is coming together while simultaneously feeling like everything I once knew has fallen away. It's a strange thing to experience so much growth and so much change at the same time. To be living parts of a life you once dreamed about, while also having to let go of so much of the life you used to know.
I'm learning that I don't need to understand every moment while I'm living it. I don't need to control how everything unfolds. I can be excited about where I'm going and still feel the weight of everything I've left behind. Maybe that's what this year has really been about. Learning to make room for both. For the beautiful and the uncomfortable. For the things that arrive and the things that leave. For the life I imagined and the life that's actually happening. Become friendly with what is.
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16 days on-site hand painting a 3,200 sq ft mural in Boca Raton, Florida. What a fun two weeks. I missed Florida. I spent a lot of time there right after covid. I missed the friends I met there during that time. I miss morning workouts at Anatomy gym, the heat, the slow flow of Miami living. More videos and photos of the mural soon. Back to LA and back to work!
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I think what I’m learning now is how to keep the magic, the serendipity, all of the things that make me, me while still looking at life and all of its complexities straight in the eye. Not needing to change it. Not needing to run from it. And not needing to romanticize it into something it isn’t. I’m really proud of this little life I’ve built for myself. A life I can call my own. Just mine.
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I created this blue rose in 2014. I didn’t know then that it would become the marker of CKD. The watercolor style that started it all. The mark that became a signature. And somehow, the mark that made me believe it was all going to be okay.
Photos: @stan.islaw
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It’s a new look. This summer has been a season of transformation for the brand. For me. And somewhere in between it all I caught my second wind.
Summer on the east coast has been a dream. I’m ready to go back to LA, but also not ready to go back to LA. I’m currently curled up in my studio in Richmond Hill, I’m watching the DVF doc. on Disney and it’s just a nice cozy night. I love it here, it brings me back to my centre of where this all started. I celebrated my birthday with my boyfriend, my best friend Aleks, my family and in Montreal with my atelier - my second family.
This year wasn't about achievements. It was about my mind. My mental and emotional space. How I think. What I know I deserve. The perspective I've gained. The difference is that I'm no longer keeping these thoughts to myself I'm saying them out loud instead of quietly carrying them. I've also been writing in my journal more than I have in a long time, and I'm loving it. More thoughts. More manifestation. More dreaming. More pouring into the things that genuinely excite me. It feels like I've stepped into a new alignment one that makes me feel more grounded, more intentional, and more powerful than ever before. For the first time in a while, it feels like I've caught my second wind.
And I'm genuinely excited for what's next.
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Hard lessons have a way of creating space for something new. I've started to believe that new lows are often what make room for new highs. But for me, these highs haven't been external. They've been alignment. Confidence. Standing in my decisions without wavering back and forth.
I don't think it's a coincidence that I've spent most of the last two months on the East Coast, spending time in the country, back in New York, surrounded by nature. It feels like coming back to the things that have always felt like me. Not because I was ever lost, but because I've remembered what it feels like to trust myself completely.
I've realized that when you move through life in true alignment with yourself, the external world slowly begins to mirror it. The conversations you have become different. The people you choose to keep close become different. The opportunities that find you become different. I've also realized that alignment sometimes means quietly letting go. No more being the one who is always reaching out. No more saying yes when what I really want is to stay home, work, or enjoy my own company.
When I was in New York, I saw friends I hadn't seen in years. It felt exactly like old times - the old me. Familiar. Easy. Real.
I also have so much gratitude for that chapter of my life. It stretched me. I saw places I never would have seen. I met people I never would have met. I experienced things I never would have experienced if I hadn't kept saying yes. And maybe that's exactly what that season was for to explore, to learn, to say yes to it all. Sometimes you have to become a few different versions of yourself before you recognize the one that feels like home. I love being in LA. I love the beach. I love the life I'm creating, and I love the people I'm creating it with.
And that's enough. Actually, it's more than enough. It's everything.
Newest bespoke work for Bambola in Boston
Hand painted mural in Martha’s Vineyard
