Let's Be Picky!

If we think harder about how and where we spend our money, we can slow things that are fueling our crisis - like global warming, pollution, and waste. Here are some things to consider. Do you want to buy

• Products from companies that nurture the ocean or that pollute it? 
• Something timeless you’ll wear for years or something trendy you'll discard in a season only to buy a new variant again next season?
• Products made with re-usable materials or things that necessarily end up in a landfill?
• Something you adore that speaks to your soul or something because your friends have one?
• Products made by a person making a hundred decisions in the process or by a computer that copies it?
• Something that gives back or something that only extracts?
• Designs that draw from nature or designs that are derivative of someone else’s creativity?

In a world where AI and computers are slowly overtaking innovation and stifling creativity, it is a struggle to compete. Our choices matter here.

At ‘Alohi Kai, the wildlife photos I take as design basis for my jewelry are taken in the ocean with the sharks and wildlife themselves, no AI. The human models are flesh and bone! Again, not AI. Our work is always crafted by hand from carving to casting and polishing - no computer generated models, no mass production. And we are in the ocean every week (surf permitting!) clearing fishing line and garbage and lead from the reef, freeing corals and sometimes wildlife caught in it. All of this goes into each design.

You very well may differ from where I stand - and I see no problem with that. We all make our own decisions. But I would love it if everyone was conscious of the impacts of their decisions instead of just doing what we did before - because it’s a different world now and we need to make choices based on that, not the past.