From Traditional Beads to Modern Style
At RAM Jewelry Designs, "Traditional Beads, Modern Style" means combining authentic African and global beads with contemporary design. From recycled Krobo glass to Czech glass, trade beads, and artisan brass, every piece celebrates the beauty and history of handcrafted materials.
Jewelry design is a natural extension of my background of working with beading cooperatives in Africa and my love of taking disparate materials and textures and melding them into something that resounds together.
I have a passion for working with recycled glass beads, recycled vinyl, and metals from West Africa which use techniques passed down from generations and which provide economic opportunities for these communities. My style is ethnocentric as well as an eclectic mix of design and methods that anyone would feel comfortable in.
Rather than having a strict notion of how to begin each project, the beads, themselves, inspire me; I let them speak to me. Their shape, color, and material dictate what I do with them and what I am led to envision. I find that the various textures of beads that I’ve collected from all over the world ─ each with its unique history—has a story to be told. I am just the conduit.
