Too Much for the "About" Section...

TL;DR

I’m a beauty seeker who cares a lot about Earth and all beings, and has lots of feelings about life, myself, and everything. I think we can do better as a species and I strive to live up to that sentiment every day. I make jewelry and metal objects because I want these beautiful things in my life that I can’t seem to find or afford anywhere else, plus it fulfills a need for a life’s purpose, and ultimately, finishing a beautiful piece of jewelry is deeply satisfying. 

Full Disclosure (almost):

I use she/her pronouns but recognize that I am made up of both the masculine and feminine, (as are we all) and I identify with the Queer community. I was born in 1987 and I am of European, mostly English descent. I am also a novice home-scale herbalist, a beginner gardener, a nature-lover, a student of life, and a daughter. I am not a sister, but I am a friend, a cousin, and a life-partner. I read, and paint, and draw, and explore deer trails in the hills in search of magical spots to sit and breathe with nature. I explore my consciousness with curiosity and the help of meditation and plant medicines, I have a lot of feelings about the Earth and all her inhabitants, and I am constantly working on myself with gusto. I enjoy the process of watching life unfolding, moulding me and pushing me to be better every day. I am a double virgo, born on the night of a solar eclipse; I strive for perfection but doubt myself frequently, although lately: less and less so. 

I was lucky to grow up in a beautiful place, now called Martha’s Vineyard, originally the island called Noepe by the Wampanoags who have lived there for 10,000 years. I spent a lot of time outside as a kid, raised by parents who remember a time before television and know the importance of playing in nature. And I was told I was an artist, which I took to heart early on, and I am still working out whether that is innately true or just a path I happened to take. 

So I went to art school for college, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, not far from home, and with the lowest price tag in the country for a full on Art School experience.  Continuing a thread of love for jewelry making that started with a bead store job in high school and a successful small business venture making beaded earrings, I declared my major in Jewelry and Metalsmithing two weeks into my first jewelry making class, having fallen in love with the basic tasks of filing and sawing metal. I finished my degree there in 2010, a BFA in 3D Fine Arts. I have also attended ten intensive jewelry and metalsmithing courses at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, and the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Tennessee to round out my education so far. I have also learned a lot about how to run a jewelry business in a few jobs working for other jewelers; things they can’t teach you at school, like how to sit still and make many multiples of the same things, every day, ongoing. 

I moved to California in 2012 where my eyes grew bigger, my spirituality instantly deepened, and I fell in love with the biodiversity of the West coast, and a human called Levi with whom I still cohabitate. The culture of California has romanced my forever searching heart, giving space to explore the possibility of magic and the consciousness of the Earth we come from. And I have been working to grow a small business out of that mindset since I got here. 

I hold animist beliefs about the world we live in: objects hold power and can transmit messages, they are alive and breathing; even jewelry. Its completely magical to me that I can use my hands, the skills I have been taught, and tools of the trade, to take raw materials and transform them into something curvaceous and voluminous, set stones in place to sparkle at the right angle, and create forms that hold space. And most of all I want to make things that other people will find meaning within, or things which they can place their own meanings inside of, to wear around their necks or offer on their altar as a gift of beauty. 

The last few years I have been exploring beauty. And I have been allowing myself to reach for what’s most beautiful. I don’t think that I really gave myself that freedom before, and now its exciting every time I make or find or draw something that really makes my heart sing with that ahhhhhh this is what beauty is feeling, like when you catch the sunset on the Equinox and the light is so golden and the clouds are better than a painting, and the sea is so blue… and you sigh in (dis)belief at how beautiful life can be. I love luscious curves, and forms that contract, expand, and swirl. And I love a sweet hammer finish, a rough but polished surface, and simple whole-unto-themselves designs. 

So I take my real desire to do better in the world and combine it with my search for beauty, and my belief that objects are alive, and I present to you the things I can make that I find beautiful. I hope you will find them useful and enjoyable.