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Artist Statement
From a young age my mother fueled my artistic nature, supplying me with all sorts of tools and materials, encouraging me toward artistic expression, sometimes challenging my self-imposed boundaries. I was always searching for a form of expression that would allow me the most freedom. After years of sculpting, drawing and painting, I surprised myself in finding that jewelry—metalworking—is that medium.
My grandfather was a classic jeweler, my parents helped run the family jewelry store, and my father still designs jewelry for friends and relatives. Yet somehow I hadn’t, until recently, connected my artistic voice to the strong generational experience from my family. Making jewelry allows me to work with my father and grandfather’s tools to express my own unique fascination with the world.
As a child I spent my summers on a beach in California, often sifting through sandbars at low tide, finding minute seashells and sand dollars perfectly intact, but only a millimeter or so across. Was that the beginning? To find beauty and fascination in all things—even the ones we usually walk past is what fuels me. I’m drawn to texture, color, and pattern, gathering inspiration from minute details and overall themes. In my designs I am bringing what I see into focus for you to discover.
While creating the framework for my pieces—the metalworking—I think of its function. How will it wear? How comfortable will it be? How will it conform to the wearer’s body? And where will I embellish it with stones or beads? The process of inlaying comes easily, as if the shape of the metal itself directs the colors and patterns of the beads.
I have become a bead collector, finding sources for antique seed beads so small they’re no longer made…of colors and sizes unavailable in contemporary beads. All of a sudden I’m not limited to the scale of new glass beads; incorporating beads from the past along with contemporary beads allows for color and texture variations that are endless. Additionally, I have found inspiration for using tiny semi-precious stones in future mosaic work, such as coral, turquoise, onyx, shell and jaspers…I feel fortunate to have found a form of expression that continuously delights and challenges me.
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