Love, Passion, and the Stories We Wear

Jewelry making, for me, has never been about the finished piece sitting in a case. It starts as a feeling — a color that reminds me of the ocean off Balboa Park at dusk, a scrap of silverware that belonged to someone’s grandmother, the particular way light catches a hand-woven chain. The metal comes second. The feeling always comes first.

Most of what I make is built by hand, one link or one wrapped loop at a time. Viking knit, for example, is slow on purpose — you’re weaving a single strand of wire into a soft, braid-like chain, and there’s no shortcut through it. Chainmail is the same: ring by ring, hours becoming a woven surface that moves like fabric. That slowness is the point. It’s meditative work, and I think that patience ends up living inside the piece itself.

Some pieces start with a history that isn’t mine. I’ve taken vintage silverware — a spoon handle, a fork tine — and reshaped it into a pendant or worked it into a hand-woven chain. That piece already had a story before it ever touched my bench: whose table it sat on, what meals it saw. I’m not erasing that history when I reshape it. I’m adding a second chapter.

And that’s really what happens with every piece, reclaimed material or not. It has a story while it’s here in the studio at Spanish Village Art Center — the technique, the choices, the hours. But the story isn’t finished when I set it down. It’s finished when it finds the person it belongs to. A necklace worn to a wedding. A bracelet someone puts on every morning without thinking about it anymore, because it’s just become part of them. That’s the second half of the story, and it’s the half I don’t get to write — the owner does.

That’s why I’ve always preferred private viewings over an online shop. A photograph can’t tell you how a piece catches the light or sits against your skin, and it definitely can’t tell you which piece is going to become part of your story. That’s something you feel when you’re holding it. If you’d like to see the current collection in person, you’re always welcome to schedule a viewing at the studio — details are on the Contact page, and I’ll have online scheduling turned on again soon.

Art is not a product. It’s a way of life — and every piece that leaves this studio is carrying a little of mine into someone else’s.