I don’t think I go a day without making something. My interests have been broad through my journey of making. I didn’t grow up with an art pedigree with art being made in my family. No, my parents were farmers. Growing up on a farm, life was all about working with your hands; planting, caring for livestock and making our clothing. My Dad had a low bench in his machine shop, where I could work with wire and metal scraps. My Mom taught me embroidery as soon as I could hold onto a needle, and embroidery became my first love. I have experimented and even mastered, a few textile arts in my life of making and know bead weaving is an extension of those early skills. Coming from a practical farming background, being an artist wasn’t advised when I was starting out in the world to make a living. I know my family was trying to protect me from certain starvation, but artist/maker is in my soul and practicality has nothing to do with that part of me.

At the age of 20, I became a flight attendant, hostess back then. This career offered the great gift of seeing the world, while I worked. On most layovers, I was off to a museum in London, walking the streets of Paris soaking up the architecture, or visiting a gallery in Rome, New York, or Madrid. In my mid-thirties I started my formal art schooling, studying graphic design. I got a degree and worked as a graphic designer for several years for the airline, but tired of sitting at a computer day in and day out. I craved working with my hands full time. Not that I had ever stopped creating with my hands in my spare time.

Throughout those years, I continued to fly, and lived through two bankruptcies, downsizing, and a buy out with that airline, before losing the job entirely. That job loss prompted me to take the leap and risk becoming a full-time artist/maker. I returned to school and studied metalsmithing under Sherri Jaude’. I felt it was imperative to make all of the metal elements for my beaded creations including clasps, connections, and signature focal elements. This extra touch ensures that my jewelry creations are truly One-Of-A-Kind.

Fourteen years have passed since that job loss, and I've been working as an artist all of that time. I am so grateful to be doing what I love. I'm not going to paint a rosy picture of bliss, it has been a lot of hard work and experimentation, but it is so satisfying to have my own business and in control of my destiny. I create art jewelry, teach jewelry techniques locally and nationally, have an active web presence with two Etsy shops and am active in The Society for Midwest Metalsmiths. It's a busy creative life, filled with new and exciting challenges every day.