The Ancient Makers
Besides art and fashion, one of my deepest fascinations has always been ancient history. Prehistoric history, especially. The older the better.
I carry a secret dream that one day, when this chapter of my life slows, I will return to school to study archaeology or anthropology. I imagine myself on a dig in some sun-bleached landscape, brushing dust from an object someone made thousands of years ago. Something shaped by hands, an object once useful and loved
What moves me most is not simply that these objects survive. It is that they were made at all. Someone woke up and decided to shape the world.
They carved tools, spun fibers, formed vessels, wove cloth, invented adornments. They created things that served a purpose in their lifetime and now serve a second purpose in ours. These objects teach us who they were. They become evidence of thought, ingenuity, desire, and care. I never tire of this idea.
When I travel, I gravitate toward ancient places. I’ve dragged my husband Charlie to ruins in Rome, Pompeii, Athens, Delphi, Giza, Luxor, Chichen Itza, and Tulum. I love standing among old stones and weathered carvings, surrounded by proof that human beings have always felt compelled to make.
At Karnak Temple in Luxor, I wore an Egypt-themed shirt I had designed myself. A modern maker walking through an ancient temple built by makers thousands of years before her. It felt so poetic.
The Makers of Cloth
Clothing artifacts rarely survive the way stone does. Fabric dissolves and returns to the earth.
And yet the history of humans making garments is one of the most intimate threads we carry. Weavers, spinners, and sewists. The steady rhythm of looms. The early hum of machines. The careful guiding of cloth through mechanisms that still require human hands.
Unlike metal or plastic, fabric still resists full automation. It must be handled, maneuvered, and understood by the people who work with it. Even now, clothing carries forward that ancient ritual of touch.
That continuity moves me deeply. When I design garments today, I think about that lineage. About all the hands that came before mine.
A Childhood of Making
I have been making things for as long as I can remember.
As a child, I taped together sheets of paper to create drawings too large for a single page. I learned to design cards and banners on computers that now feel archaeological themselves, my teacher typing the words I could not yet spell. I learned photography in a darkroom, watching images appear slowly in chemical baths like
My grandmother always had projects waiting for me when I visited her house. Fabric scraps sealed onto cardboard pumpkins with Mod Podge, paint by numbers, latch hook kits, and all types of seasonal crafts. Later, as a teenager, I made scrapbooks layered with glitter and memory. Friendship bracelets knotted in bright thread. Jewelry assembled with pliers, jump rings, and tiny stones.
I once opened an Etsy shop for resin jewelry. I helped build a business called Muffle Cuffs, jewelry for guitars. I wrote and self-published a novel. I learned to play bass and to write my own bass lines. I learned ProTools. Photoshop. Videography.
If there was a tool, I wanted to understand it.
The DIY Years
With Berried Alive, making became survival.
Charlie and I built a cardboard room in his mom’s garage for an early music video. We smashed fruit into Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots and filmed it in slow motion. We covered toilets in macerated strawberries for single art. We drove into the Badlands for a single shot. We learned special effects makeup because hiring someone was not an option.
If we did not know how to do something, we learned.
We photographed our own clothing in Hawaii, Paris, Egypt, Seattle, Vancouver. We made our own props. We edited our own photos. We experimented with polymer clay, digital illustration, and elaborate set design. We collaborated on a craft beer and stood beside the tanks while it brewed, discovering that even fermentation can be an art form when guided by careful hands.
In 2018, I began creating digital artwork on the iPad for Berried Alive. That practice led me to pastel. Pastel led me to Still Life. And Still Life became the first House of Caswell collection, born from a single original painting.
One of the greatest honors of my life has been seeing fans tattoo my artwork onto their bodies. To create something that lives permanently on someone else’s skin is a responsibility I do not take lightly.
Above my desk sits a shelf filled with things others have made for us. 3D printed figurines. Sewn bags. Letters. Lego characters. Proof that making inspires more making.
Evidence of Our Hands
It is almost as if we cannot help ourselves.
People have been making things since time immemorial. Perhaps that is part of why we are here. Not simply to consume or observe, but to shape. To respond to our world and leave evidence of our hands behind.
When I stand in ancient ruins, I feel connected to that lineage. When I cut into fabric, I feel it again. When I sketch, compose, stitch, edit, or paint, I am participating in something much older than myself.
I be making things.
Not because I am chasing novelty or because I am trying to fill silence. But because creating feels like communion with the past and with others. With the quiet part of myself that has always known this is what I was made to do.
An Invitation
If you have ever felt the urge to build, to stitch, to write, to carve, to rearrange the world with your own hands, to make excessive lists (as I myself am known to do), you are part of this lineage too.
Every House of Caswell garment begins as artwork made by hand and moves through many more hands before it reaches you. It is not mass output. It is continuation.
If you would like to follow along as I continue making, and thinking about making, you are always welcome to join the Collector’s List.
A quieter space for those who believe what we make matters.