Like you, I have always collected the ephemeral—those things that turn to dust in time. Of course, I am overcome by all of it—this entire world full with wings and things, garden petals drying in books, sticks and stones, fossils and sand, odds and ends of this and that; But it is especially where the so-called natural world interfaces with the trappings of humanity that really inspires my work. Acrylic angles recall power-lines fragmenting the moving sky; faceted gems and water smooth granite are robins chortling in the gutter after a big rain.

I work with a variety of traditional jewelry making tools, including my grandmother’s acetylene torch and chasing stamps handmade from rebar remnants; but I delight in using unusual materials, like acrylic rescued from the waste stream, fascinating and collectable gem and mineral specimens, and wing and petal that show signs of a life well lived. Multi-layered and multi-colored vitreous enamel surfaces evoke the chimerical nature of the sky or the landscape, as I layer about 15 different enamel colors onto a single piece, kiln-firing the sugary powder into a hard glossy surface at a very hot 1450 degrees Fahrenheit. The results are always delightful, and sometimes surprising.

Each of my works is a modern-day curiosity cabinet, meant to display object and to hold space for memory. Link bracelets circle in a continuity of story; cuff bracelets converse over the space of the wrist. And mismatched earrings explore the tension between mirror image and facsimile, challenge our ideas about the value of symmetry, and invite us to consider the balance maintained between partners. What is one without the other?