Every business has a beginning. Ours started on a hike on the west side of Oʻahu, when I came across an ʻilima — a plant I recognized but had never stopped to truly look at. Its golden petals delicate and papery, its presence quiet but impossible to ignore. That moment of curiosity sent me down a path I never expected. I started wondering what things looked like in my neighborhood before the houses — and I found out that ʻilima once spread across the plains of ʻEwa, covering the dry lowland landscape that Sugar Caddy and I both call home. That discovery is the reason Kākou Collective exists.
Our newest artwork, a collaboration with Sugar Caddy, features the ʻilima — a plant that has challenged me, humbled me, and taught me more than I expected.
Indigenous to Hawaiʻi and found from mauka to makai, the ʻilima (Sida fallax) grows in rocky shorelines, lava fields, and dry forests, tolerating drought, heat, wind, and salt spray with quiet persistence.¹ Its golden flowers were so revered they were once reserved for aliʻi, worn as a mark of rank and honor.² A single strand of ʻilima lei requires anywhere from 500 to 1,000 blossoms — each one carefully harvested, each one fleeting.² Beyond the lei, ʻilima was also used medicinally, in home construction, and in cooking — a plant woven into everyday life in more ways than most people realize.¹
For me personally, this plant represents perseverance. Its unique petal shape — that delicate, papery softness — is one of the hardest things I have ever tried to illustrate. Every year I draw a new version of it, pushing myself to get closer to what makes it so distinct. I have never fully arrived. But I keep returning to it, because that is what the ʻilima does — it returns. It grows where others cannot. It blooms year-round without asking for much. Its buds keep coming, one after another, a quiet and continuous act of persistence. It shows up.
Learning about this plant opened a door I have never closed. The more I understood about the ʻilima — its ecology, its cultural weight, its connection to the ʻāina — the more I wanted to know about everything growing around it. That curiosity became the foundation of this business.
This piece is dedicated to the Waikoloa Dry Forest Initiative, a nonprofit committed to preserving, protecting, and restoring native Hawaiian dry forest — and a reminder of what our dry lowland landscapes once looked like and can become again. Learn more about their work at waikoloadryforest.org.⁴
This artwork will also be featured at Merrie Monarch — a week-long festival honoring King David Kalākaua's vision for perpetuating Hawaiian traditions, language, and arts.⁵ See our full Merrie Monarch 2026 collection and find us at the festival here.
The ʻilima has been teaching me since the beginning. We hope this piece passes some of that on.
E mālama i ka ʻāina.
References
- Waikoloa Dry Forest Initiative — ʻIlima
- National Tropical Botanical Garden — Sida fallax
- Native Hawaiian Garden — ʻIlima
- Waikoloa Dry Forest Initiative — About
- Merrie Monarch Festival — Official Site