I have been making jewelry for a couple of decades, but have been a rock hound since I was a kid and fell in love with the Gems & Minerals exhibit at the Smithsonian. I minored in Environmental Sciences (mostly minerology) but majored in the History of Technology because I became fascinated by how technological change drives social change and vise versa. I came out to Silicon Valley after business school to see if I could take my historical knowledge into the field here to steer technological growth towards social good. I spent over a decade launching emerging technologies that have changed the way we live (multi- media CD-ROMS, e-commerce, search engines). After I had kids, I shifted into a career that allowed me to live more of a balanced or “hybrid” life and ran a successful technical training company. A couple of life “wake up calls” caused me to decide to focus on my kids, but I soon realized that I would drive them and me crazy with my undivided attention. The solution was to dive into doing something artistic and tactile while they were at school. I soon reconnected with my love of stones and minerals and became a compulsively creative jeweler.
My path to jewelry making feels a little bit like the children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. I started by stringing semi-precious beads – which became the medley Story Necklaces collection. The beads reminded me how much I liked minerals and I quickly got hooked on lapidary (cutting and polishing rocks) but amassed way too many specimens. I learned metalsmithing so that I could create “vehicles” to get to show off super cool minerals to a broader audience. Ask me about phrenite or cobalt calcite or cavansite or … or maybe don’t get me started! I had fun playing with the properties of silver and seeing how it melted and reacted to fire and worked hard to match the metal to the specimen. Because I was using natural minerals and recycled metal (think sterling coins and silverware melted down) and because I was letting the properties of the metal dictate the form, I decided to call this series Organic Silver. In my efforts to get the metal to match the interesting patterns of the minerals, I noticed that flowers and leaves had the textures I was sometimes struggling to achieve. So I learned to cast them into metal – sort of like lost wax casting but trickier when you try to cast an organic. This series is called Organics IN Silver (or Bronze). I’m not sure where the story will end up, but I am having a blast playing with the natural elements and trying to proselytize mother nature to the unsuspecting public 🙂
Throughout this journey, my focus has been incorporating earth’s beautiful creations into wearable art. I work to showcase the natural beauty of the elements and combining them in ways that are pleasing to the wearer. The best reward is seeing a client’s face light up when they are wearing a piece that makes them feel beautiful and happy.
I have been living in Palo Alto for over thirty years in Iris House – an 1893 Victorian that I have restored, expanded, and decorated with hundreds of heirloom irises in the yard and all sorts of (iris) art that I have made or traded with other artists over the years. My two kids are now both living out of the house and paying income taxes (yeah!!) so I also have time to cycle the hills, swim at the local pool, hike the parks, kayak the bays, sing in a community chorus, play trivia, and generally seize the day.
I have been very fortunate is so many ways and believe strongly in contributing to the community. I founded Artists in Action to organize group benefit shows for Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital (Giving Thanks for the Children), Community Breast Health Project (For the Love of Mom) and the Red Cross (Spread a Little Love at Valentine’s). Silicon Valley Open Studios is also a great way to connect artists to the community and I often host groups of artists in my garden during those May weekends.
Sharing my Inspiration
People viewing my work often ask how I came up with my unique designs. Or they might exclaim at the incredible variety of my pieces. Or they might comment that my pieces must each take an incredibly long time to create. My answer usually surprises and sometimes frustrates them: “They just sort of happen.”
At the beginning of my art career, while I was still trying to conquer the fundamentals of working with metals and stones, I would walk into the studio and get stressed out. I could feel my heart racing as I struggled to solder closed a bezel. I would practically stamp my feet in frustration when I had to back up wheel grits to get scratches out of a cabochon. I was impatient to be able to make the professional looking pieces I saw in the jewelry stores. Even if this was supposed to be a recreational hobby, I had to do it right!
So, of course, I messed up. Overhearing me muttering some choice words, another artist in the studio told me “there is no such thing as a mistake in art, just go with it.” Well, it being me, if I was going to mess it up, I was going to mess it up royally. So I kept ruining the piece, melting bits here and there, randomly destroying my careful symmetry and plan. My blood pressure went down, the angry haze in my eyes cleared away, and I started to have fun. Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it. – Salvador Dali
The end result was, in its own unique and somewhat bizarre way, beautiful.
That day I decided that whatever I made, however it turned out, no matter what other people thought, it was ART and it was O.K. My work wasn’t going to be like anyone else’s work. I wasn’t going to be able to reproduce it even if I tried (which also meant that I wouldn’t be “knocked off.”) My style was going to be uniquely suited to my level (or lack) of technical skill. I wasn’t going to compare my work to others or worry about how sophisticated it was. My work was just going to be the result of my having fun in the studio. Creativity takes courage. – Henri Matisse
Phew, what a relief! There went all the disappointments and frustrations. I flushed away my anxieties about meeting standards. I could enter my studio each morning with the happy thought, “I wonder what I am going to make today?” Each piece became a surprise, an unexpected gift. My art brought me joy. Expectations are premeditated resentments. – AA
When I started trying to cast organics everyone told me that it couldn’t be done – the organic material just does not burn out cleanly enough. But I was determined (stubborn) to learn how and stuck with it until I had about a hundred specimens captured in metal. Sure, it took years, but the results were worth it :-). If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. – Thomas Palmer.
Playing with precious metals and minerals isn’t cheap. Of course I had to figure out how to direct my efforts to making pieces that I could actually sell so that I could maintain my habit. I learned a lot about wearability from customers, reduced the weight of the pieces, and made sure to remove the “unintentional mastectomy tool” points. Sometimes I focus on particular colors or sizes to round out my inventory. But I have been fortunate to find that there is a person who will love each piece I make. It might take a while to make that perfect match and the piece may sit in my drawer for years, but every one will find someone to love it. Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. – Confucious
Part of the thrill of being alive is being able to reinvent yourself. Enjoy!