Beauty In The Details

I was raised among the forests and rivers of western Maryland. I vividly remember hours spent, as a child, catching minnows, watching spiders spin webs, and wandering through fields and woodland places looking for treasures. The impressions made on me by this exposure to the natural world created the framework for my future creative style. Celebrating the small, beautiful details in my world has brought an opulence to life that I am always trying to express.

My prints are full of details and can sometimes take one to three weeks to complete. They tend to emphasize color, organic forms, and curvalinear lines and are made using meticulously applied ink, colored pencil, and sometimes paint. I then have them professionally reproduced as giclee prints on high quality archival paper.

I first zeroed in on the jewelry arts in my college sculpture class and it has remained my most enduring creative outlet of choice ever since. Jewelry appeals to me because of its use of natural stones, metals, and other materials from the earth and because it IS one of those small details within the grand scheme of life. Each piece that is made is an ornament, like a berry on a tree, shiny and waiting to be seen.

I gather inspiration and materials from a variety of sources and I use an array of techniques from metalsmithing to beading. Whenever possible I love using found objects and up-cycling interesting components from vintage jewelry. All enameled metal beads are torch fired by yours truly.

For me, the most important part of all is knowing that something I created is going out into the world to become a detail in someone else's life. I like to wonder what people it will know and things it will see once it leaves my mailbox and heads out into the wide world.