The SeaKnot Story
In the beginning, there was piece of simple blue fishing rope. A piece of rope picked up on a beach in Barbados, brought back to Amsterdam and lovingly sent to Paris in a box.
Stephanie, an eco-artist based in France, makes artwork out of beach-combed ‘treasures’, using fishing rope as her principal material. One day, after receiving the box of rope sent by her sister, she was toying around with the piece of blue rope from Barbados and made a knot. THE knot, the soon-to-become SeaKnot. In her kind of ‘Eureka’ moment, Stephanie was convinced that the knot had a greater meaning. A knot is a means of stopping something. The SeaKnot — a play on ‘to see not’ — is a symbol for stopping the flood of plastic pollution in our oceans. What some choose to ‘see not’ and others (lots of others we hope !) choose to fight. The SeaKnot was born.
So Stephanie decided to test the idea by posting a photo of the SeaKnot on social media, asking for reactions and comments. There was immediate positive feedback from ‘aware’ people — fellow beach cleaners and ocean conservation activists and professionals.
A trans-Atlantic twitter-enabled tale
Then there was a cyber knock on the door. The message that really started the SeaKnot.
Sandra, a sports marketing expert and founder of the Atlanta-based charity Say No to Plastics, saw in the SeaKnot a promising means to start conversations, create awareness and open the eyes of people about the crisis our oceans are facing.
She sent a message to Stephanie proposing that they work together on turning the SeaKnot into something more than an idea. Between Atlanta and Paris, the emails, WhatsApp calls and Canva exchanges started flowing.
A meeting of minds and hearts
Sharing a ‘small world department’ link to Rhode Island —Sandra grew up there and Stephanie attended Brown University¬—, the journey so far has been an amusing, exciting, and fluid meeting of two very motivated souls.
Despite the plethora of visuals and hashtags being shared to create awareness about the plastics crisis, there is no strong unique symbol out there.
Sandra and Stephanie have come together with much enthusiasm and a simple … albeit ambitious, goal:
Develop the SeaKnot as a unifying symbol for the fight against plastics!
Meet Sandra
Meet Stephanie
Sandra grew up in New England loving the beaches and oceans off Rhode Island and Cape Cod. She is happiest sailing. Bringing clean oceans back to the world is a passion she has worked on since 2008.
She began her early professional career as an educator, later entering entering sales and sports marketing. She is an occasional maverick and long time entrepreneur.
She has founded two nationally recognized sports marketing companies, both highly regarded. Internationally recognized sports properties she has worked with include the Summer Olympics, the Super Bowl, World Cup Soccer, the Kentucky Derby and America’s Cup, to name just a few.
The myriad of organizations fighting the good fight against single-use plastics will have the opportunity to avail themselves of her branding, licensing, merchandising, & sales expertise.
Stephanie spent her early years in West Africa, beach combing and collecting shells. After a degree in Art Semiotics from Brown University in Providence Rhode Island, she moved to Paris where she founded several creative hot-shops in the 90’s and early 00’s.
She worked for many years as a creative director before doing consulting work as a communications strategy specialist for corporations and public interest groups.
After five years as the head of corporate communications in a digital communications agency, Stephanie decided to use her skills to help fight plastic pollution in 2017.
Stephanie is also known as a beach debris artist. She recently held a one woman show displaying her unique works of art. She weaves found fishing rope and makes prints with plastic waste as a means of creating awareness and starting conversations about plastic pollution.
Stephanie brings her extensive experience in graphic design and strategic communications to My SeaKnot.
Her abilities to translate your needs, brief designers and make sure you get the key visuals and materials you need to get your message across is much needed in the fight against plastics.