Hello!

My name is Katy Morikawa. I am a web developer, graphic designer, artist, writer, astrologer, lifelong philosopher mystic, aspiring naturalist, native planter, podcaster, semi-skilled woodworker, eco-activist, cat mom, Floyd County dweller, graduate of Blacksburg High School, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and the California Institute of Integral Studies.

I live on a gravel road in a small wooden cabin I built with my partner, Michael. We are surrounded by trees through which we can just see distant mountains, the sounds of katydids in the summer, and family nearby.

Sometimes it feels like a miracle. Other times, I feel like I’m clinging to the mountain side, like our cabin kind of does. Floyd isn’t my first choice of a place to live, and yet it is, because I am here. Is anywhere perfect these days? The Earth, humanity is in trouble. Everywhere needs help, and the places people don’t want to live need it the most.

So, I’m working on blooming where I’m planted. Besides, it is a good place for me to live. I have family here or near here. And I’ve begun to feel an attachment for this corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Our cain in the woods

Volunteer Work

Floyd Native Plants

Midway through the frenzied two years I spent teaching myself about Appalachian ecology, learning to identify native plants, beginning to be able to recognize the difference between relatively intact ecosystems and degraded ones, seeing invasive species everywhere, and having fallen in love with bees and wasps (I’ve written about some of this here), I created a list of high value nectar flowers native to Floyd County, VA.

I didn’t yet know what types of ecological restoration were most needed in Floyd, but I could see how few flowers there were in the wild. A great deal of research went into the list. But with a panic (why a panic?), I realized my list would be useless to local gardeners if these flowers weren’t available for purchase anywhere locally. After inquiring among several local nurseries and understanding that adding these species to their already planned planting schedule was not possible, I went to Sustain Floyd and Partnership for Floyd and asked them to fund a native seed-starting project.

Wildflower Wednesdays

In early 2023, I created the floydnativeplants.org website and Facebook page, bought seeds (from Prairie Moon Nursery) for as many of the species on my list as I could find, and began to plan. Over the course of the spring and summer of 2023, a small group of growers and I, including Mother’s Child Farm, Spikenard Honeybee Farm, Barbara Pleasant, and a few friends of mine, raised more than 5,000 native wildflowers from seed and gave them away in a series of events at the Floyd Farmers Market we called Wildflower Wednesdays. It was a great success and well received by the community.

At the end of the summer, thoroughly exhausted and dead broke (I had neglected my paying clients and ran the project for free), I announced we would not be doing the project again next year. My hope was that we had lit a fire under the local nurseries, raised local awareness about native plants, and helped to get plants into the ground where they might begin to grow and support local wildlife, and produce seeds to restore the depleted local native seedbank.

In 2025, Sustain Floyd approached me again, and I agreed to coordinate with a few growers willing to grow a smaller group of native wildflowers for giveaway. This project was much smaller, and I ended up having to do quite a bit more than planned (of course). But we held several giveaways that went quite well, all plants went home with hopeful gardeners, and we were helped by new volunteers from Blacksburg. They have taken up the baton and plan to do their own projects in Blacksburg now that the Virginia Native Plant Society plans to discontinue their growing projects. It is a lot of work, especially if you don’t have the greenhouses and planting setups.

Community Advisor to Sustain Floyd

Sustain Floyd is a local non-profit organization working to build ecological and economic resiliency in the Floyd County area of Southwest Virginia since 2008. I have known many of its founding members for decades, and my father is one of these. But only in 2021 did I get involved as the organization sought to engage a younger generation. The issue of recycling, sadly behind the times here in Floyd, was the first initiative I took up. This led to my part in Sustain Floyd’s presentation to the Industrial Design class at Virginia Tech: Household Recycling Problems for Industrial Designers. On January 19, 2022, I was formally nominated and accepted as a Community Advisor. It’s a wonderful honor and I look forward to years of engagement on sustainability issues in Floyd.

Blog and Podcast

I have blogged and podcasted off and on, returning to it periodically because I like the way that writing for a public audience inspires the discipline needed to develop my thoughts. It’s probably also a way to contemplate topics few of my society have any interest in. I feel compelled too by age (I am 56 this year) to give back and share my wisdom, for what it’s worth. This same urge to give back inspired me for the first time in my life to volunteer and activist work, which has eclipsed the blogging and podcasting for now that we’re out of the pandemic.

Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Anchor

Work History

Freelance Web Developer, Graphic Designer, Virtual Assistant (2015-present)

I’ve been a WordPress developer since 2015, a graphic designer since 1998, and an artist since I could hold a pen. These days, most of my clients are non-profits. It’s a client roster that suits me well. I work from home, something I enjoy a lot. I am never lonely, and only wish I had a better retirement plan!

Co-Founder, Sales, Marketing, She-of-Many-Hats (2015-2022)

The Workshop, Floyd VA. The business we launched in 2015 when we left Crenshaw Lighting is closed but for local metalwork, but we continue to draw inspiration from our mission: “Live simply. Leave a light footprint on the earth. Cherish beauty. Make by hand what we can. Protect nature, and especially protect the trees. Love our neighbors. Laugh a lot. Keep learning. Live long and prosper.”

Inside Sales, Project Manager, Marketing, Website (2010-2015)

Crenshaw Lighting, Floyd, VA. They have since gutted the beautiful website I helped to create and replaced it with a Shopify website! There’s no accounting for taste.

EDUCATION

M.A. Counseling Psychology, Somatics (2009)

California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA

B.A. Religion (1993)

University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI

H.S. Graduate (1986)

Blacksburg High School, Blacksburg, VA

PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES