I didn’t think about making art, I just made things. It wasn’t until university that I focused on art as something to do, but my feeling was that my discipline hadn’t been invented, which was partially true. Much later, during an online photo scanning class, I had my epiphany. I decided to finish a photo scan of a tree as a small object just to see what it looked like. When I got the piece back and held it in my hand, I knew I had to design small objects on a computer and make them in metal. This was a total surprise.
My work begins with a question, an intuition or a gemstone. Almost all my designing is done on a computer. I print lots of variations just to see what they look like. The flexibility of silver and the computer give me the ability to do just about anything I can think of. So my work is personal and eclectic. The pieces are finished when they say something. Then I start preparing them for their final print and casting.
My work process is both technical and tactile. I begin on the computer in a 3D program called Zbrush, which is like working with wax or clay without the mess. Another advantage is that you can zoom in and really work on details. The disadvantage to that is losing your sense of scale. I print early and often to help anchor the design in reality while I work. My final designs are printed in a castable resin, cast in silver (Almost always. Love silver.), and then I refine the piece in metal. It’s like going from the computer’s formlessness to the printed form to the final form. Besides the computer work and the bench work, I occasionally cut my gemstones. I’m a one person shop.
I went to school in illustration, painting, photography, and film and came to jewelry accidentally through computers. I’m self-taught in both, although I’ve taken metal and lapidary classes. That was in self-defense. I couldn’t stand the way other people finished my pieces. In 2022, at the American Craft Council’s St. Paul Show, I was given an Award for Excellence in Jewelry.
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