| THE EPISTOLARIAN |

When I meet someone and we begin talking about letters, I often ask how they first learned to send mail. I am listening for a spark, something lighting up in their eyes. The answer is almost always a person.

An aunt who sent birthday cards in impeccable handwriting.
Grandparents who saved their love letters from the war.
A friend who moved away to another state.

Again and again, I hear a version of the same story. Letter writing was not taught. It was inherited.

I began to understand that letters are not merely a form of communication. They are a form of transmission. They are passed hand to hand, generation to generation, often without ceremony, until one day you realize you are carrying something older and larger than yourself.

My own inheritance began with my grandmother, Neenie.

Most weeks, she sent individual cards to me and my sister Betsy, each with a thoughtful note, a dollar bill, a piece of bubblegum, and usually a picture of something cute, often a kitten. Neenie taught me to write letters, but more importantly, she taught me how to live with beautiful things.

She was not the kind of grandmother who kept knickknacks locked away in untouchable glass cases. With Neenie, beauty was quite literally imbibed. Champagne was poured into fine crystal flutes and handed to me as a child. Water was served in tall, hefty pink goblets. Margaritas appeared in elegant, whimsical glasses with little charms dangling from their stems. Nothing was locked away, at least not permanently. Beauty was present in each moment we shared.

Even then, I understood that luxury was not about having more, but about appreciating life’s beauty and sharing it, about refusing the idea that enjoyment must be postponed, or that living with beautiful things is frivolous.

I still have those pink goblets. When people come to my home to learn the art of wax seals, I serve water in them. They are tangible links to her, but they are also vessels for something that can be shared. They hold memory, and they let me pass it on.

This is what inheritance looks like when it is alive.

Objects may be the most powerful vessels of memory we have. We remember things we have held, used, and lived with more vividly than things we have only seen. A letter in familiar handwriting. A glass lifted again and again by different hands over many holiday meals. These objects do not only represent the past. They keep it in conversation with the present.

I wear my grandmother’s sapphire and diamond ring on my right hand. Though I am probably supposed to treat it as something fragile, I wear it for everything: skiing, sailing, painting, even swimming. Do not come for me. Wearing it reminds me that what we pass down should be worthy of continued life, not reverence from a cold and distant safe deposit box.

My path toward making began through study. I entered college as a mathematical economics major, which I enjoyed and considered sensible. After my sister and I spent a summer on a Grand Tour through Greece, Turkey, Italy, and Austria, immersed in art, architecture, and history, I enrolled in an art history course. While home for the holidays, I eagerly shared everything I was learning. My father, whom I had always assumed wanted me to choose the most practical path, surprised me.

“You seem much more passionate about art and art history,” he said. “Have you considered switching your major?”

I had not. But with that single question, he gave me permission to pursue a life shaped by passion rather than caution. I changed my major and spent the next several years immersed in studio art and art history, some of the most joyful and formative years of my life.

After graduation, however, there was no obvious linear path forward. I returned, briefly, to what was practical, while continuing to live an intensely artistic life outside of work.

Later, I began collecting antiques, drawn most powerfully to seals. Antique seals are often overlooked, but they are exacting teachers. They reveal what lasts and what does not. They bear the evidence of many hands across generations and remind me that traditions survive only when the objects carrying them are still alive and worthy of being passed on.

Through them, I began to understand craftsmanship as one of the few ways objects are allowed to become timeless. What troubles me is the way craft has been hollowed out in the modern era, reduced to disposable objects, stripped of meaning, easily copied, sold cheaply, and forgotten quickly. I am not exempt from this. I have taken up hobbies that were never meant to last, half-completed projects that ended up in plastic bins, stored away in our basement, eventually becoming clutter rather than companions.

Craft once carried an awareness of mortality, an understanding that all things return. Ashes to ashes. Today, we move through a different cycle entirely. Landfill to landfill.

The objects we inherit are different. They are meant to be on display. To be touched. To be part of life. This is one of the reasons I do not design opaque display boxes to hold my work. I want you to have something you love so much that you enjoy looking at it.

Living with these objects, rather than preserving them at a distance, led me deeper into their history. As I worked with antique seals over many years, developing new techniques in sealing wax, something became increasingly clear to me. Historically, the artistry of wax seals was understood almost entirely through engraving. The wax itself was treated as secondary, a mere vehicle. Over time, symbolism flattened, craftsmanship was cheapened, and the possibility of modern seals as true heirlooms disappeared.

I felt both a responsibility and a hesitation. I did not want to create anything unless it was worthy of the tradition it belonged to. To make something new without reverence would have been worse than making nothing at all.

When I create, I think about timelessness in practical terms, whether an object can move naturally from one set of hands to another, cherished for centuries to come.

In my studio, a painting given to me by my grandparents watches over my workspace. When I finish pouring wax, I blow out the candle of the melter and make a quiet wish. These rituals are practical on the surface, so as not to burn the house down, but they also remind me that making is an act of care, and that care deepens our sense of stewardship.

The objects we choose to live with become a handshake between generations. Between solitude and company. Between those who came before us and those who will follow.

This week, I invite you to consider the objects in your own life that connect you to someone you have loved. Perhaps clean them. Polish them. Bring them back into use. Allow yourself the permission to live with beauty again. It is not just decoration; it is an invitation to live alongside time rather than apart from it.

Hastings Étui Pre-Order

The first handful of Hastings Étuis went out yesterday. The remainder will be sent in approximately two to three weeks. Fifty are currently available for pre-order, and we are now in the final allocation. I wish you could be with me as I wrap them up. There is just joy and anticipation with each one. 

Color of the Week: Helen

I have named a color in the shop for both of my children. My daughter, Helen, has always loved purples and pinks, and this wax has become her favorite. It was first called Laelia, after a rare orchid, and is now named Helen.

Newest Bundle: The Valentine's Bundle

If you love pinks, reds and purples, you'll enjoy the newest bundle, a limited edition Valentine's bundle, which includes Hypnos, Champagne, Montecito, Antoinette, Aphrodite, Bacchus, and Patsy.

In case you Missed it - New Floriography Seal

The Orchid arrived this week, and few remain. For me, orchids symbolize femininity, sophistication, and elevation, their blossoms lifted high, composed and observant. Across history, this refinement has appeared globally, from associations with vitality and quiet virtue to Victorian ideas of cultivated taste. The Orchid Floriography Seal is a limited release of eleven, reserved for the Collectors Register.