The Benefits of Translation 🗝️ + Winged Victory Unveiled 🪽✨

August 31, 2026

| THE EPISTOLARIAN |

Although I speak English, German, and Spanish, many of my seals are inscribed in languages I do not speak, often Latin and French.

I have always loved what happens when you translate something.

There is an assumption that translation dilutes meaning, like a long game of telephone. I often find the opposite; translation makes me look more closely. A word that seemed simple suddenly has three possible meanings, and choosing between them can create a deeper understanding, almost as if a word’s meaning exists within a landscape, with its own weather and mood.

To translate is to carry an idea from one language into another, like a cart carrying precious cargo. The German word for translation, Übersetzung, captures this beautifully: über, “across,” and setzen, “to set or place.” To translate is, in a sense, to set something across.

I begin to think of words almost as physical objects. They carry traces of where they came from, but the journey changes how we encounter them when they arrive, freshly packaged, new.

There are four translateable inscriptions in the Helix Edition Étui:

Claves Intus Sunt
I translate it as The keys are within. But intus can mean inside, within, inwardly. The keys might be within a person, or, more precisely, found when the direction of attention turns inward.

Cresce Non Cambia
Grow, do not change. But crescere can also mean to increase, develop, become greater. I think of it as: Grow more fully into who you already are.

Ex pulchritudine vita
From beauty, life. But ex can mean from, out of, or forth from. So I hear other possibilities in it: Out of beauty comes life. Life born from beauty. Beauty isn't ornamental; it's a precursor to life.

Verba mea fiunt
My words become. This may be my favorite to translate because it remains slightly ambiguous. Fiunt can mean become, happen, come into being, be made. My words become. My words happen. My words come into being. My words are made real. Each opens a slightly different door, and expands the interpreted power of writing. Our words do all four things.

I don't want to find the one English translation that closes the meaning down. I am interested in everything that opens up while carrying the concept across languages.

Is there a word you know in another language that English can translate, but never quite contain?

The Helix Edition Étui

More Ouroborus Details

The first Ouroboros Rings are making their way to their collectors this week.

The Ouroboros is one of those symbols I could return to forever. The serpent consuming its own tail, an ending becoming a beginning, transformation folding endlessly back into itself. Thousands of years old, and somehow still speaking so clearly to what it means to become.

I've made 50 at this time and am not sure if I will make more in the future.

The Ouroborus Étui Ring Border

Winged Victory Unveiled

The first Collector’s Edition Winged Victories begin their journey out into the world this week, and I am finally unveiling one of my favorite details: the extraordinary resin handle created especially for this piece.

It completely transforms the seal. The sculptural, luminous resin elevates the Winged Victory from an object for the desk into a work of art in its own right, something meant to live beautifully on display even when it is not in use.

Since it sold out very quickly, I am opening a new round of pre-orders. This next edition is expected to ship in early November, making now the perfect time to order if you would like yours to arrive in time for the holidays.

Winged Victory (Pre-Order)

A Live Session with Kathryn Hastings I

I returned last night from almost three weeks in Tahoe, and one of the highlights was making seals with my mom and namesake, the original Kathryn Hastings.

If you are new to wax seals, the Live session is a wonderful place to start. You can watch the process unfold in real time and get a sense for the actual rhythm and timing of making a seal. And if you already make seals, the session was simply a lovely excuse to relax, make something, and hear some wax seal talk.

The recording from last week is now up if you’d like to watch.

Watch the Live Session

Part 2: Painting