I was drawn to ebony and bone since my first jewelry class in at Philadelphia Y. Other materials I use are sterling and fine silver, golds, shakudo (a copper and gold Japanese alloy), mokume gane, pearls, Australian boulder opals, mirrors, glass and other unobtainium.

I spent several formative years learning metalsmithing at Penland School in the hills of North Carolina. I eventually came to live in the foothills and now the valley of northern California where my bench with its tools and wooden table, metal and cow bone, head and heart, have been the primary instructors and collaborators.

My ideas derive from the collective experiences and encounters of my daily and imaginative life. The forms of the natural world delight me… clever seed pods, the designs of the human body, floppy microorganisms. A brooch or a ring emerges from my stash of materials and is coaxed and teased until it becomes a meaningful thing which can be cherished. I see most of my pieces as installments in an ongoing conversation that I started many pieces ago.