I began my jewelry-making journey about two years ago, when I took some classes at a local art studio near my home at the time in Southwest Florida. I got started with what’s called, “Cold Connections,” making jewelry without the use of solder. It incorporates methods such as wire wrapping and riveting. I then enrolled in some silversmith classes and made a few rings. As is my usual, I took off with it. Before long I bought a cabbing machine to grind and polish my own stones into beautiful cabochons, and all the tools I needed to create works of art from metal and stone. Everything I make is from raw stone and silver stock. I have on occasion used copper in some of my pieces, but in combination with the silver. Although I do purchase silver sheets and wire from reputable suppliers, along with necklace chains, I also recycle my own small silver pieces leftover from my work, and then I fashion it into usable shapes again to create new pieces of jewelry. All of the pieces that leave my studio are hand-made, from start to finish. Each and every piece is something I envisioned in the stone and metal shapes. Each creation is unique. Although ear wires, ring shanks, or pendant mounts, etc. can be replicated to some degree, the stone can never be one hundred percent duplicated. It is like a finger print. There is none other exactly like it available anywhere. I look at a raw stone and make what I can with it. At times I see a symmetrical shape such as a circle, square, oval, or polygon. Other times I let the stone tell me how it should look on a piece of jewelry. I like to leave as much of it as possible, as nature created it over time, and will often end up with a highly polished, but irregularly-shaped outline.

I now live in Western North Carolina and do all of my work in my studio there.

My vision is for people to enjoy wearing my work as much as I enjoyed creating it.