Artist's Statement
No ideas but in things.
—William Carlos Williams
I always have believed in the primacy of the mundane object, the importance of things. Jewelry is consumed by its thing-ness; it has no real purpose, and yet often is suffused with meaning by the wearer. When I think on the first piece of jewelry I ever received—a gold infant's heart-shaped locket engraved with my initials—I am reminded equally of my grandparents who gave it to me and of the fledgling identity that it was intended to represent. I loved its delicate chain; the way the metal shone against the fair skin of my neck; the bold uppercase letters of the initials.
But what if we adorned ourselves with the everyday, not with gemstones but with game pieces: nostalgia in concrete form? Growing up, my family had a closet full of nothing but board games, and I relished the times when we would take the little plastic battleships or cars from their boxes. Looking on ordinary items with new eyes requires reinventing their purpose, and has become my passion as a jewelry designer. The fact that my work involves recycling mostly used materials is a fabulous bonus.
I have been inspired by Joseph Cornell's memory boxes, the way they preserve a lock of hair (or glass vials filled with marbles; or the innards of a music box; etc.), suspended in time in an intricate diorama. I love the odd juxtapositions of high art made low through the photocollage of Barry Kite. But perhaps most of all I am influenced by the pop culture sculptures and installations of Robert Rauschenberg and Claus Oldenberg, both of whom took kitschy images from their surroundings and made them enormous, colorful, and iconic.
I hope you enjoy my designs as much as I enjoy making them.
