About the Artist

I have followed a very unorthodox path to jewelry-making. I have a B.A. in Biology and an M.S. in Wildlife Conservation, and have used neither degree professionally. Instead, I went directly from graduate school into construction! As it turns out, while I was working on my Master's degree, I realized that, although I excelled at academics, I needed to work with my hands. I learned that I enjoyed construction by working on projects at home, and I found that it offered many things that I wanted for my work life: physical labor, working with my hands, problem solving, learning about new things constantly, being able to see the results of my work in a tangible way, and an easy way to be self-employed. Ultimately, I became a licensed remodeling contractor, wholly self-employed since 1995.

In the mean time, my "artistic muscles" began to be exercised when I learned to knit in 2000. At about the same time I started playing around with wire and experimenting with forms and links. I even reverse-engineered a wire dragon sculpture that a friend had. It was a wonderful academic exercise involving several dozen steps. This friend later suggested I should combine the two interests and knit with wire, so when I saw Nancie Wiseman's book, Knitting With Wire, I did not hesitate to buy it. I discovered that I enjoyed neither the process nor the result of knitting with wire, but the small section on "Viking knitting" struck a chord. I taught myself the basic technique, then started experimenting with weave pattern and density, and how best to incorporate beads and gemstones.

In recent years I have continued to explore working with wire, and have made this endeavor the main focus of my work life. I find the medium to be fascinating, and particularly enjoy exploring the patterns that I can make with wire.