Transforming vs Recycling
I started working with beads, wire and jewelry design in 2005. Early on I sought to mix my design skill sets by incorporating stain glass into my jewelry and then using stain glass techniques to turn natural stones and shells into pendants. My turn-everything-into-jewelry brain eventually led me to pick up my families discarded guitar strings. I've stuck with it, and been struck by the detail they bring, since 2011.
Through my design degree in Architecture at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, I studied many facets of design and composition. My designs are often light, striving for balance, detail and clarity. This translates across scale: buildings, furniture, sculpture, jewelry. In college a heavy emphasis was put on sustainable building practices and as students we flocked to the reclaimed building centers to scavenge for that perfect piece of rusted metal that we could take back to the shop and build into a small table or model stand. Repurposing was our jam. And so I continued to play with the idea of repurposing techniques onto repurposed materials.
My jewelry wire skills easily translated to the wire of guitar strings. By breaking the long strings down into small segments and incorporating them with bits of chain, semi-precious stones and mixed metal beads I can achieve that transformation I'm looking for. Where the reclaimed item no longer looks like what it used to be. Instead it is a modern and elegant piece of jewelry with interesting wound wire detailing and strong linear geometries.
