Every time we choose to adorn ourselves consciously or subconsciously we connect to a 100,000 year shared human experience in a personal, intimate and a magical way.
Jewelry is part of the human consciousness; it is one of the oldest archeological artifacts. When we adorn ourselves we participate in traditions, which connects us to history, forgotten cultures, and ritual like no other gesture can. Jewelry has a kind of magic in its ability to connect to the past, to others and ourselves.
I started my creative path over 20 years ago with my first analog film camera, Pentax K1000. The love of photography led me to study art in Chicago for a BFA and later receiving a MFA. Midcentury German glass beads caught my attention in 2007, which started a collecting frenzy. I searched high and low for these tiny colorful sculptures and spent hours in a soothing act of combining them into once of kind pieces which I sold on my online store. A year later I took my first jewelry construction class, and then a casting class, which change everything for me.
During my first lost wax casting class I was amazed by the almost alchemy of turning wax into metal. I was humbled by a process which was invented about 6,000 years ago by Theodorus of Samos who also invented the level, ruler, key, square and the lathe. As I carved the wax model I found myself deeply involve in what Carl Jung calls Active Imagination letting the shape of the jewelry reveal itself in a type of mediative play with wax and a file. It’s magic to see these thoughts become wax then cast in to jewelry to share my vision with the world.
Jewelry is magic, healing and rich with history. It has the ability to connect us to the past and the present while being art we wear on our bodies. I hope to create jewelry that will inspire connections with all things magical to us.
Do you want to make magic with me?