First Muse Monday: Featuring Kelsey Sankey
I’m so excited to start featuring creators who inspire me, once a month, for Muse Monday.
Kelsey and I became friends through Instagram. It was one of those cases where kindred spirits recognize each other upon first stumbling upon each other’s posts. We share a love of living an Anne Shirley kind of life — in which we embrace our romantic, poetic, whimsical natures; surround ourselves with beautiful objects; and are enamored with nature (especially flowers and the sea).
Her gentle heart and loving nature inspire me as much as the gorgeous jewelry she crafts. We completed this interview at the end of last year, but due to unforeseen events in my life, I’m just getting around to posting it now. Thank you, dear Kelsey, for your patience and for being my first muse to grace these pages.
I’ll include links to her Instagram page and shop below, after the interview.
INTERVIEW WITH KELSEY of @willowwoodkelsey
How would you describe your muse?
Ever-changing. One of my dear friends calls me kel-sea, and it’s quite fitting, for I’ve a very whirling surface, wavelets, dancing here and there, but have very calm and settled depths. I feel like my creative energy reflects that.
What inspires you?
I would say nature, but it’s more than that. It’s seeing nature through Anne Shirley’s eyes, as if through an opalescent veil, or as Cinderella is described in my favorite adaptation (2014): “She saw the world not only as it was, but as perhaps it could be.” I’m also besotted with anything Rococo, Regency, and Art Nouveau.
Can you talk for a bit about what it means to you to romantify life?
It’s really a slight shift on romanticizing. Shortly before and especially in the midst of the pandemic, you saw many people reevaluate their lives, their priorities. We were all hurting, and the forced sabbatical gave us a lot of time to ponder. Many of us realized we weren’t even enjoying our lives. So, you started seeing a lot of encouragement and emphasis on romanticizing your life. It was definitely a step in the right direction, but for a lot of people it was also a misstep leading to a lot of frustration, even burnout. Not everything in life is beautiful; not everything can be. Romanticizing can carry the tang of embellishment, of pretending something is different –better than it truly is.
Romantifying is different. It’s an action, something that lies in your hands. It’s identifying the philosophies of our culture that belie our dignity, our comfort, our rest, our peace. It’s doing little things, crafting little moments that honor those things instead.
What are you enjoying lately?
Adding freshwater pearl baubles to anything and everything, baking (something I used to be afraid of), corsets and stays with everything, dyeing ribbons fantastical colors, and wrestling words into poetic semblance.
Where did the idea to make fairy wing earrings come from?
They are inspired by Cicada wings, but I wanted them to shimmer and dance, in every shade of my childhood fairytales. Each one seems deeply magical to me as it comes to life with each gossamer layer.
Can you talk a bit about your artistic/creative background?
I come from a very artistic, creative family on my mother’s side. I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t surrounded by aesthetics. My grandma invented and sold products to restore antique dolls, my mom is an interior designer, and she and all of my aunts and uncles are artists. I never lacked for mediums and have dabbled in just about everything. A penchant for history and fairytales influenced my style. When I was 18, I started my first business selling wool felt flower pins, then flower crowns, then I restored and sold wearable antique dresses, before completely shifting direction and working a few years in a church office position. It was a good experience in many ways, but any office caters to hustle culture, so after getting married in 2020 I stepped down to be a homemaker and artist again.
Do you have a favorite quote?
I’ve so many, I could share pages and pages! But currently, the one I’m really trying to lean into is “Be who you are and say what you feel, for those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” Dr. Seuss
Anything else you’d like to share?
Just some encouragement I penned earlier this year (2022):
lean into your slowness/ the world here may be quickening apace -- the thundering din may threaten to crush you under foot/ but the stampede has souls enough – one more will add nothing to the aggregate/ the rush may lure, but it will never be enough – you were not made for such speeds/ take your cue from the moon, she cares not for trends, but ebbs & wanes with beautiful deliberation/ the flowers will not bloom sooner for pressuring, they bring their blossoms each again in their season/ water can trickle or devour landscapes, but you cannot rush or control it/ so do not listen to their voices, do not rush through your one tremendous, exquisite life – slow it may be indeed, but your heart’s pace is a seraphic dance…
love to you, dearest Caitlin, & to anyone reading this tender lil’ newsletter of hers – your slowness adds such beauty to the world! Blessings as the year ebbs & the new begins.
Kelsey’s Instagram is @willowwoodkelsey
Oh what beautiful jewellery! And how inspiring to hear from someone who has worked making beautiful things from her hands nearly her whole life 🤍 the world needs more like Kelsey! ✨
What a beautiful distinction made between trying to romanticise all of life and it leading to frustration, compared to 'romantifying' aspects we can control ❤️ Lovely jewellery too!